Why ACORN?
ACORN Collaboration Mission Statement
ACORN is an international collaboration of mental health and substance abuse treatment centers supported by a team of researchers and statisticians. The purpose of the collaboration is not simply to measure outcomes, but to demonstrably improve outcomes through routine use of client completed questionnaires measuring not only clinical symptoms, but also levels of social conflict/isolation, substance use/abuse, and thoughts of self-harm. The fifteen years of collaboration have resulted in a state-of-the-art data platform and algorithm-driven feedback to clinicians that has been empirically demonstrated to lead to improved results, depending on how often clinicians login to view their data and get feedback. Clinics with the best results tend to have clinical leadership that monitors results and encourages clinicians to measure at every session and routinely view their data. An important part of the ACORN mission is to encourage and enable clinical leadership to improve quality by measurably improving client outcomes in a way that is clinically meaningful. Our questionnaires are designed to be as short and straight forward as possible while still maintaining high reliability and validity. Data from our questionnaires help therapists and clients monitor improvement and make adjustments in treatment as necessary.
Our Team
Jeb Brown
Jeb earned his PhD in Counseling Psychology from Duke University in 1978. Before founding the ACORN Collaboration, Jeb worked as Executive Director for The Center for Family Development, Executive Director of Behavioral Health Systems at United Health Care, and Director of Clinical Programs for Aetna Health Plans. In 1998 Jeb founded the Center for Clinical Informatics and began work on the ALERT System for PacifiCare Behavioral Health. The ALERT system survived PacifiCare’s acquisition by United Health Care and collaborative work with various academic researchers who were granted access to data within ALERT resulted in a stream of peer reviewed articles advancing the methodology for benchmarking treatment outcomes. In 2007 Jeb and Takuya Minami founded the ACORN Collaboration and began work on a next generation clinical information system with a goal of greatly expanding the capabilities of older platforms. The ACORN platform continues to build off lessons learned over 20 years of research and development: If you improve patient outcomes, you shorten treatment times, you prevent drop out, and you increase the value of care.
Takuya Minami
Tak leads the psychometric research and development of advanced statistical methods at ACORN. Over his academic career, he has focused on psychotherapy process and outcome measurement, particularly with regards to the effectiveness of psychotherapy practiced in clinical service settings (e.g., mental health clinics, university/college counseling centers). In 2007, Tak and Jeb founded the ACORN Collaboration and began work on a next generation clinical information system with the goal of greatly expanding the capabilities of older platforms. He is a member of APA Division 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Tak is currently a tenured professor in the College of Education and Human Development at University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Justin Turner
Over his 12 years at ACORN, Justin has had roles ranging from coordinating customer service and clinician training, database management, IT support, employee oversight to developing all of ACORN's tutorial videos. As our current Operations Manager, he continues to keep the data center up and running. In his free time, Justin is designing and programming a single player video game and enjoys part time gigs as a voice actor.
Ashley Simon
Ashley began working in clinical Psychology labs as an undergraduate at the University of Utah before leaving the field briefly to obtain a Master's degree in Middle East Studies and Linguistics. Over her 11 years at ACORN, Ashley has worked as the head of Risk Assessment, QA, has coauthored on the collaboration's psychometric research, and now directs ACORN's content and training initiative. She is currently pursuing a calling as an amateur mycologist.
Joe Lalli
Joe recently joined the CCI team as Director of Administrative Services. He takes the lead in management oversight of business management and planning, budgeting, sales, contracting, and quality management. For the past five years, Joe has honed his skills as an IT manager for increasingly large IT startups with rapid promotions at each. His skills and knowledge will greatly add to the capabilities of our team.