Operational Direction for Data Submission Requirements for the Mental Health and Addictions Sector – DATIS communication
On December 10th, 2024 Ontario Health released an operational direction to Community Mental Health and Addictions Health Service Providers receiving funding from the Ministry of Health, or Ontario Health, for adult community and/or outpatient mental health and addictions programs.
Please visit Ontario Health Memos and Operational Directions for the full details of this release.
Under this operational direction, all community mental health and addictions health service providers are required to submit data to Ontario Health. This will include:
- Submission of the Mental Health and Addictions Provincial Data Set. (MHA PDS)
- Submission of client Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) numbers within the provincial data set, for most mental health and addictions functional centres (see Appendix for a list of exclusions), to ensure visibility of the entire client journey across all health care providers and sectors.
We are writing to you to highlight the following critical piece within the direction about how it will impact organizations who have a Catalyst database (both active or inactive):
Catalyst Compliance
The Catalyst application, used to submit data to the Drug & Alcohol Treatment Information System (DATIS) for addictions programs, is not a compliant client management system and will not be made compliant. Health service providers who use Catalyst will need to move to a compliant system or work with Ontario Health to determine the best way to become compliant with the operational direction (e.g., through partnerships with other organizations).
Health service providers who are successfully collecting the provincial data set through a compliant vendor client management system will no longer be required to submit data through the Catalyst application. Once a provider has gone through the Catalyst offboarding process and has implemented the required fields in their new system and are actively collecting this information for their clients, they are able to stop entering data into Catalyst. If you require information on how to offboard from Catalyst, please have a Catalyst System Administrator contact the Catalyst Service Desk.
Staged Screening and Assessment Tools
In addition, the Staged Screening and Assessment tools in use by addictions services providers and accessed via Catalyst will be decommissioned as of March 31, 2025. More information about screening and assessment practices for addictions services providers can be found in the Ontario Health Memo previous released by the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence.
DATIS is a partner of Ontario Health Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence. In addition to supporting Catalyst organizations in offboarding, we will also be providing end to end stakeholder support to all HSPs who are impacted by this direction. We look forward to continuing to support the sector during this important transformation.
To learn more about the requirements related to the Operational Direction, please visit the PDS Resource Hub. For questions about the PDS or to submit your plan for how you will become compliant, you can connect with the PDS Service Desk.
For questions about the operational direction, please contact mhaddi@ontariohealth.ca.
