STEP Program Research Initiatives and Involvement

STEP’s involvement in ESPRITO: The STEP HONE group is providing informatics infrastructure for the ESPRITO network within the national EPINET project. The STEP clinic is also a participating site. This network covers 12 clinics across 5 states and the network hub at Northwell Health, NY. The principal investigators are John Kane MD and Delbert Robinson MD.

HONE (Healthcare Outcomes, Network and Education): The U.S. Institutes of Medicine (IOM) conceptualized Learning Health Systems (LHS) as integrating the best available science with appropriate incentives supportive informatics, and a workplace culture that supports both implementation of current knowledge and discovery to address knowledge gaps. STEP has prototyped an LHS for early intervention in schizophrenia and has within this developed an informatics platform to support its missions of dissemination of its care model, translational research and workforce development. The resultant implementation methodology and informatics toolbox (HONE) is designed to aggregate data from multiple sources, display these data to enable inferences about determinants of health and health disparities, support quality improvement, and enable targeted translational research. HONE includes a curated and expanding list of core outcome measures and accompanying data displays to advance dissemination of early intervention services for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

The STEP HONE group has partnered with the Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) hub to guide the LHS implementation and provide informatics infrastructure. This network, called AC-EPINET, consists of 6 clinical academic institutions across 6 states. The principal investigator is Alan Breier MD.