THE MULTICONSTITUENCY APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT - A CANADIAN MENTAL-HEALTH SYSTEM APPLICATION

This papers applies a multiconstituency approach to assessing organiza tional performance in Canadian general hospital psychiatric units and provincial psychiatric hospitals. In the absence of reliable and valid outcome measures, researchers and administrators have increasingly co nsidered the views of external constituencies as a means of both defin ing the criteria for effective performance and actually assessing orga nizational performance. Key constituencies included psychiatric unit s taff, psychiatric hospital administrators, and directors of community agencies providing mental health and related services. Opinions about organizational roles were found to exist among constituencies and amon g professional groups. Perceptions of organizational performance were highest for primary roles and substantially lowest for roles of second ary importance to the constituency. Future analyses of this type could help to validate the use of both constituency measures and more tradi tional performance measures. While constituency views may be seen as s ubjective, they are nevertheless key to building effective mental heal th service delivery systems.