bhworks Provenance and Validation

Initially developed through a collaboration with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP),bhworks and the Behavioral Health Screen (BHS) has been validated and researched by clinicians and experts in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and pediatrics. The clinical utility of the tool has been strongly endorsed by a series of evaluations led by Guy Diamond, PhD; Joel Fein MD, MPH; and Matt Wintersteen, PhD.

In 2007, HRSA supported testing of bhworks in Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s (CHOP) Emergency Department. The hospital has continued to use bhworks in their Violence Prevention Initiative, an award-winning program that provides recovery support services to adolescent victims of interpersonal violence. Since then, thousands of patients have been screened in the CHOP Emergency Department, and in 2010 the Joint Commission commended CHOP for established use of the bhworks tool in their ED.

In 2008, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services partnered with mdlogix to use bhworks for a SAMHSA-funded Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention Grant and has been implemented in over 500 middle and high schools across Pennsylvania. The platform also helps to bring behavioral health screening and recovery support services to PA primary care facilities, colleges, and universities.

In 2015, the bhworks platform was selected for a CMS funded project that intends to recruit, survey, and educate providers to facilitate better behavioral health integration in primary care. The project spans across 5 states – Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi. Additionally, these practices have been given access to the bhworks platform, dramatically increasing screening rates at all practices that have utilized the tool.

This validation process has generated a stream of scientific knowledge which can guide clinical practice, and study findings have found connections between sexual identity and disordered eating, adolescent risk factors for suicide ideation, and links between depression, substance use, and non-suicidal self-harming behavior.