Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program:

Data Submission Guide

The OSP Technical Specifications, also known as the Data Submission Template, is an Excel spreadsheet that provides a template to submit quantitative data collected from the OSP program. All NLOs are required to use this data format to submit their data.

Key Features:

• The template is created to align with the OSP data dictionary. New versions of the data dictionary may result in corresponding revisions to the data submission template.
• At present, 87 of the data elements documented in the OSP data dictionary have been mapped to 87 database columns in the Data Submission Template (V4.00). An additional 6 database columns are included for historically collected data elements.

Responsibilities of NLOs

The main responsibilities for NLOs are related to data coaching, quality, collection, and submission are summarized below:

1. Privacy considerations:

• Ensure that all data sharing within their network for the purposes of OSP service provision complies with current Ontario privacy legislation as well as organizational privacy and confidentiality policies to preserve clients' personal health information.
• Store data securely and protect it against theft, loss, alteration, disposal, destruction, and unauthorized access, collection, use, and disclosure by selecting and maintaining appropriate physical, technological, and administrative security standards.
  
  

2. Coach clinicians/SDS on data requirements

• Provide support for implementation of measurement-based care across the network including coaching for clinicians, information for clients on the approach, and building data collection capacity.
• Ensure that progress of all clients within the network is measured and collected regularly throughout treatment using OSP standardized measures, and that scores are reviewed with the client and used to inform clinical decisions/service approaches.

3. Implement ongoing quality improvement 

• Monitor client outcomes and demographic data collected through the MDS across the network, including those specific to clients from priority populations to support quality improvement efforts, accordingly.
• Use data collected through MDS and implementation monitoring and project tracking to support internal quality improvement planning for improvement on metrics within clinical outcomes, service utilization, and program standards.

4. Conduct data quality checks

• Monitor local data quality to ensure the robustness, reliability and completeness of data that is extracted for central reporting (activities may include regular data audits, data validation, processing data entry backlog, etc.).
• Conduct data cleaning to remove incorrect or duplicated entries or modify the values to meet certain rules and standards.
• Identify and eliminate the root causes for data quality issues; regularly review data quality policies and rules with the intent to continuously improve them and prevent repeated errors.

5. Implement and maintain data collection systems:

• Select and implement an independent data collection tool with the capacity to collect the standardized MDS data for each client across service delivery sites
• Support SDSs in implementing data management systems and establishing processes for collecting and submitting required data, as well as offering necessary ongoing technical support for OSP-related needs

6. Compile and submit client data to provincial repository (DATIS) for reporting

• Securely transfer data on a on a bimonthly (per the data submission schedule) basis to the Provincial System Support Program’s (PSSP) Drug and Alcohol Treatment Information System (DATIS) at CAMH (or any future repositories, as these are developed) for consolidation and analysis.
• Conduct performance management across the network related to clinical outcomes and OSP standards (e.g., data quality, wait times) by reviewing data against provincial targets.

Data Submission Instructions

As part of OSP, all service providers must collect MDS data for evaluation purposes and send it to the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Information System (DATIS). DATIS staff will then evaluate the program overall, to determine if the program is being implemented successfully and where improvements can be made around training and supervision, clinical, data quality or administrative processes, and equity.

As of June 21, 2021, the data submission template for each reporting period will be submitted using the Exit Date (MDS item #81) as the cutoff criteria for historical data. This decision was made unanimously by the Data Working Group. According to this decision:

• Data submissions will include only data for open client records and client records closed within the reporting period
• Records for clients who have exited prior to the reporting period are archived
• Closed records cannot be updated once they have been submitted; however, there will be an opportunity to update closed records at the end of each fiscal year
• Open client records will need to resubmitted in full until they are closed

The steps to conduct data submission are as follows. Each of these steps will be described in further detail.

STEP 1: Initiate service request to create secure file transfer platform (SFTP) account,

Step 1: Initiate service request to create secure file transfer platform (SFTP) account

NLOs should initiate a service request with CAMH by providing DATIS with basic information, including their organization and contact personnel, and the request to create an SFTP account.
There will only be one SFTP account and corresponding key generated per NLO. Please initiate a service request through the OSP Service Desk.