Industry Fidelity Data as an Indicator of Quality Service Delivery

Research shows that treatment fidelity - the extent to which an intervention is implemented as designed - is an indicator of quality service delivery (e.g., Buffington Townsend et al., 2023). However, recent survey research suggests that the collection, tracking, and analysis of fidelity data is not often done in practice (Colon et al., in preparation). There are industry data available for analysis, though, to determine the quality of service provided, as some organizations do regularly collect these data.

With the permission of our customers, de-identified fidelity data were aggregated and analyzed across 29 organizations, 315 clinical supervisors, 1,422 service providers, and 739 clients. Industry data reveal significant gaps in protocol adherence, impacting the quality of services provided to clients of service. Specifically, 20% of clients’ skill acquisition program implementation and 40% of clients’ behavior reduction program implementation deviated from quality standards. Service provider fidelity is lower than expected for 25% and 33% of providers evaluated implementing skill acquisition and behavior reduction protocols, respectively. Data for clinical supervisors reveal that two-thirds were ineffective in writing skill acquisition and behavior reduction programs.

The presenters will discuss these industry data in detail and provide suggestions for organizations to access this information to ensure quality services are delivered to their service recipients.