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PRZOOM - /newswire/ -
Langhorne, PA, United States, 2010/06/09 - Today’s college counselors must address more and more serious problems, often with fewer resources. Polaris-COMS will help them evaluate and monitor students’ conditions, and provide more effective services before these problems escalate.
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Polaris Health Directions has been awarded a three-year, $1 million grant for its College Outcomes Management System (COMS), an automated behavioral health assessment that will be used to address psychosocial problems and substance abuse among students.
The funding, awarded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse, will enable Polaris to continue the development of COMS. The assessment will be used by college health and counseling centers to determine the nature and severity of students’ problems, support clinical-decision making and to track a student’s progress throughout the course of treatment.
College counseling centers are challenged by the growing rate of mental health problems and substance abuse among students. A 2008 study of 28,000 students in 66 colleges and universities conducted by Penn State’s Center for the Study of Collegiate Mental Health found that 14 percent had seriously considered suicide since starting college and 42 percent reported binge drinking at least once during the past two weeks.
And with tragedies such as the one at Virginia Tech University an all too real possibility, it is imperative to have a system in place to detect serious emotional and behavioral health issues before they escalate.
“Counseling centers play a critical role in helping students cope with the stresses of college,” said Dr. Grant Grissom, Principal Investigator for the project and president of Polaris. “But today’s college counselors are required to address more and more serious problems, often with fewer resources. COMS will help them evaluate and monitor students’ conditions, enabling them to provide more effective services, and will offer another channel for reaching out to troubled students before their problems become severe.”
Students will be able to take the COMS assessment on a secure Web site and at their convenience prior to the initial counseling session; the system will offer the option to protect a student’s identity. The system will then immediately generate a report that counselors can use to determine the severity of a student’s problems, and during discussions with the student. If a student has not yet initiated contact with a college counselor, they may still take the COMS assessment, and will be provided with a list of referrals for counselors on and off campus.
This next phase of development will include field testing an abbreviated version of COMS for use in college health centers, and building predictive models to determine a student’s likely response to treatment and whether he or she is at risk of dropping out of college. The system will be easily integrated into existing electronic health record systems.
The project described was supported by Award Number 2 R44 DA023441-02 from the National Institute for Drug Abuse. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute for Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health.
About Polaris Health Directions
At Polaris, we recognize that organizations cannot manage what they do not measure. Many behavioral health care providers and payers may not be collecting and analyzing enough of the right data to answer basic questions about the cost-effectiveness of the care they offer. Polaris's advanced technology and science driven assessment systems are designed to capture the clinical data essential to quality improvement and enhanced organizational management. Polaris solutions (polarishealth.com) provide advanced analytics to help you improve and demonstrate to your customers the value of your care. With a focus on prediction, Polaris solutions do more than describe clinical change. Our systems also indicate if treatment is likely to have a positive result. Helping you make better decisions in the present by anticipating the future will be the difference in reducing your costs while improving patient care.
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