Avalon Hills Blog

We blogged about the Avalon Hills outcome studies because it is important that our incoming, current, and past residents understand how they are contributing to that goal. Understandably people are going to start asking, “Where’s the data?” We saw that coming.

Jodi -our diligent researcher – has been collecting data for over a year now.  Some of that time has been spent working out kinks in the system.  She’s also been working on figuring out what do we make of this data.  We could “cherry pick” one index or scale and use it to show how nearly everyone at Avalon Hills recovers, but that isn’t our style.

At present we aren’t publishing our data because we feel that we need more time to collect a bigger sample and to figure out a way of presenting the information in a way that is transparent and responsible. You’ve heard there’s lies, dang lies and statistics.  Well, we’d like to avoid being part of that problem.

We appreciate everyone’s patience as we continue to move toward transparent reporting of outcome data.  We further wish to thank the past residents that continue to support this effort through their participation in the 3, 6 and 12 month follow-up outcome measures.  We are determined to see that their commitment to the process of recovery will benefit girls and women years to come.

Outcome Studies

In June of 2007, Avalon Hills Residential Eating Disorder Program began collecting its initial outcome data.  There are several objectives that we are hoping to achieve through this research.

· Increase our understanding of eating disorders and co-morbid disorders.

· Demonstrate to ourselves in a more systematic way what we already know– our program has a positive impact on the lives of our residents.

· Work to continually improve our treatment and verify that we have succeeded.

· Contribute to the national data pool on treatment of eating disorders. By adopting a standard set of assessment tools we may soon be able to collaborate with other treatment teams across the country to improve quality of treatment.

· Demonstrate that residential treatment is a worthwhile investment, with the hopes of improving insurance reimbursement.

· Improve the ability of clients and their families to select the treatment option that is best suited to their needs.

We would like to thank all of the residents and their families who have and continue to participate in this process with us.  We recognize that this takes an enormous time commitment on their part. Their willingness to provide us with their responses up to a year after discharge is critical to our meeting the above goals.