A question and answer section in the July/August newsletter from the Community Mental Health Common Assessment Project includes a discussion of recommended uses for the Ontario Common Assessment of Need (OCAN). OCAN is a standardized, consumer-led, decision-making tool that assists with mental health recovery. It identifies individual needs, helps match those needs to existing services and helps identify service gaps.
The OCAN Steering Committee has expanded the list of functional centres that it recommends as appropriate for the use of OCAN. That list now includes all functional centres that were previously designated as requiring further testing. The decision was made in order to allow a province-wide rollout of OCAN while implementation support is still available. Health service providers for whom OCAN may not be appropriate can request exceptions through their Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) Steering Committee and can use a Core OCAN version that captures Common Data Set information.
The newsletter also highlights several reports that have been released on the new Continuing Care Information Management (CCIM) website, including an evaluation of OCAN in Aboriginal mental health programs, a summary of the North East LHIN pilot, a study of consumer/survivor inititive perspectives on OCAN, and a report on cross-sector focus groups from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
See OCAN Update, July/August 2010, available at www.ontario.cmha.ca/cmhcap. For OCAN reports, visit www.ccim.on.ca.