Headway, the company building a new mental healthcare system, announced its participation in the Aligned Innovation initiative, a groundbreaking cross-industry collaboration led by the National Quality Forum (NQF). Aligned Innovation is designed to accelerate development of outcome-oriented healthcare quality measures that are most meaningful to patients and clinicians, while also supporting reduced measure burden. As the initiative's first launch partner, Headway will help advance the next generation of quality measures for behavioral health by empowering providers to be at the center of developing an assessment tool for understanding progress in treating depression and anxiety. Headway is engaging more than 100 providers on its platform as key partners to create new patient-reported quality measures that help them understand patient functional improvement, not just symptom improvement.

The need for this work is critical; according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 21 million adults in the U.S. have experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year. While it's well-known that depression and other conditions can cause functional impairment, current assessment tools often fail to capture the full spectrum of recovery, including improvements in quality of life and daily functioning. This initiative aims to address these gaps by developing more comprehensive tools that reflect meaningful progress in patients' lives.

"Current assessments have their limitations; they don't provide much insight into my patients' functional improvements as their symptoms improve," said Natasha N. Lockhart, LPC. "I'm excited to collaborate with Headway and NQF to develop an assessment that offers a deeper understanding of my patients' progress and its effects on their everyday lives."

The partnership aims to create a singular, comprehensive assessment tool that evaluates psychotherapy treatment effectiveness and progression for depression and anxiety. This tool will not only measure symptoms but also track functional health outcomes—such as quality of life, personal relationships, employment, and daily function—that are meaningful to patient progress. The assessment will be applicable across age, including children, adolescents and adults.

As the initiative's first and largest launch partner, Headway has engaged more than 100 willing clinicians on its platform and their consenting patients to participate. Through the rest of the year, participating clinicians will include new assessments – which include not only symptom measures, but also a functional measure – in their clinical workflows. Anonymized data from these assessments will be shared in a secure environment with NQF to understand their impact. They will also have the opportunity to participate in optional site meetings with NQF to provide input on implementation challenges or clinical considerations.

"We know the industry needs patient-reported outcomes that offer a more accurate reflection of meaningful recovery in mental health, and are honored to partner with NQF and our clinicians to make this a reality," said Olivia Davis, Chief Commercial Officer at Headway. "We also know that this work must be provider-led, as they best understand the limitations of today's measures. Together we can move the industry forward."

As part of the NQF's multi-stakeholder Aligned Innovation initiative, Headway is working closely with providers, health plans, health systems and a state health information exchange to streamline data collection across the most common mental health conditions. The initiative focuses on ensuring that assessments are appropriate for diverse populations and pushing beyond symptom reporting to measure outcomes that truly matter to patients.

"We are proud to be at the forefront of driving meaningful, clinically accurate measurement though Aligned Innovation's unique streamlined multi-stakeholder model, particularly filling high priority measure gap areas like behavioral health outcomes" Dana Gelb Safran, Sc.D., NQF President and CEO. "Partners like Headway are helping us to achieve this important work."

Clinicians on Headway's platform participating in this effort are eligible to earn up to five continued education credits through accrediting organizations such as the American Psychological Association, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the Association Social Work Boards and more.