Announcement From The Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx)

The next NIATx Change Leader Academy (CLA) will take place April 28-29, 2008 on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The CLA is designed to help dedicated learners become leaders in applying NIATx process improvement in their agencies and earn certification as a NIATx Change Leader.

Who should attend?
The CLA is designed for individuals with little experience in leading change. Whether you are a beginner or have some experience in process improvement, the CLA will equip you to lead change projects and teams within your organization. Read more. [PDF]

Motivational Incentives (AKA Contingency Management) Lead to Increased Client Retention

Promoting Awareness of Motivational Incentives (PAMI), part of NIDA's Blending Initiative is a multi part resource for substance abuse treatment providers. Successful Treatment Outcomes Using Motivational Incentives in Addiction Treatment contains a very informative 10-minute video, sample policy and procedures, fundraising ideas, forms for clinicians including tracking sheets and recording documents. Also available are ready-to-go PowerPoint presentations that can be used to "sell" the idea of Motivational Incentives to executives and boards. Read more.

National Voluntary Consensus Standards for the Treatment of Substance Use Conditions: Evidence-Based Treatment Practices

With the understanding that consensus on effective treatment practices can focus the development of measures of quality, the National Quality Forum (NQF), with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), undertook this project as one step to address the need for performance measures for the treatment of substance use conditions. The project is intended to enhance the adoption of NQF-endorsedTM evidence-based practices for patients with substance use conditions by focusing on the practices for which the evidence is strongest and most accepted—and that are most likely to have significant impact on improving care. Read more. [PDF]

A Clinician’s Guide for Implementing Contingency Management Programs

Contingency management (CM) interventions, also sometimes called motivational incentives, are based upon principles of behavioral modification. These procedures stem from token economy approaches that were developed over 40 years ago and are still in place today. The behavioral principles are centered around three basic tenets. First, you arrange the environment such that target behaviors (e.g., drug abstinence) are readily detected; this aspect includes frequent monitoring, such as conducting thrice weekly urinalysis testing. Second, you provide tangible reinforcers whenever the target behavior is demonstrated. In other words, you can give a client a token, a clinic privilege, or a gift certificate whenever she or he tests negative for drugs. Third, when the target behavior does not occur, you systematically withhold these rewards. Sometimes slight punishers may also be delivered (reset time needed to attain take-home methadone privileges) when inappropriate behaviors occur. Read more. [PDF]

A Primer on Process Improvement

This Primer provides guidance for behavioral health treatment agencies to use in changing their organizations to improve access and retention. Some of the guidance offered here is based on evidence showing what factors lead to successful organizational change, and some guidance is based on the need to create a common framework to allow efficient communication within and among organizations. The improvement process being used relies heavily on The Model for Improvement in The Improvement Guide, by Langley, Nolan, Nolan, Norman, and Provost, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996. The guidance in this primer is also consistent with the approaches found in The Change Book, by the Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) National Network, and the Program Change Model, by Simpson, D.D. in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 22(4), 171–182. Read more.

Improving Substance Abuse Treatment Delivery

Often, the real obstacles keeping patients from treatment are the ways in which services are delivered (Institute of Medicine, 2005). Research shows that systemic and programmatic reasons controlled by the treatment facility accounted for 51 percent of the reasons clients cited for not accessing treatment (Joe et al., 1998; Ebener, 2003). “Business processes” such as complicated admission systems, poorly designed phone systems, and un-engaging reception staff created some of the barriers to treatment access. Read more. [PDF]

Utilizing rapid cycle process improvement to improve access and retention in healthcare settings and to advance organizational strategic goals

This is a recorded presentation.

• Apply the principles of rapid cycle process improvement in a healthcare environment.
• Identifiy how rapid cycle techniques can improve client access to treatment and therefore advance public health goals.
• Articulate the relationship between rapid cycle process improvement approaches and strategic planning.

Read more.

NIATx Business Case Series: Acadia Hospital, Bangor, Maine

Acadia Hospital is a freestanding non-profit psychiatric and substance abuse hospital with both inpatient and outpatient programs. Addiction services are provided at two sites, and include inpatient detox, an Intensive Outpatient Program, a dual diagnosis program, methadone and buprenorphine treatment, an extended shelter residential treatment program, and a variety of homeless and transitional housing options. Opioid dependence is the primary diagnosis of the majority of our addiction patients. Read more. [PDF]

SAMHSA-funded Study Shows Receiving Substance Abuse Treatment within 30 Days Following Detoxification Lengthens the Time to Subsequent Relapse

More than one-quarter of patients receiving publicly funded substance abuse detoxification will have a second detoxification readmission within a year. But if patients receive substance abuse treatment on two or more days within 30 days of discharge from a detoxification admission, time to subsequent relapse and readmission lengthens by 40 percent according to findings revealed in a study sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and published in the September 2006 issue of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.

The SAMHSA-funded study was conducted under the SAMHSA Spending Estimates Project and was written by Dr. Tami L. Mark of Thomson Medstat, Rita Vandivort of SAMHSA, and Leslie Montejano of Thomson Medstat. The complete article can be accessed at www.journals.elsevierhealth.com/periodicals/sat.