246866 Single State Authorities and Medication Assisted Treatment: Assessing Availability, Data Capacity and Provider Performance

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Sean J. Haley, PhD, MPH , Health and Nutrition Sciences, Brooklyn College & CUNY School of Public Health, Brooklyn, NY
Kimberly Johnson, MBA , NIATx, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Henrick Harwood , National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, Washington, DC
Several pharmacological interventions have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs) (McGovern and Carroll 2003; Miller, Zweben et al. 2005; NIDA 2009). This study served as a preliminary exploration to understand States' infrastructure capabilities and policies related to medication assisted treatment (MAT). This study, which began in December 2010, had two components: 1) a telephone survey with each State's substance abuse treatment data manager and 2) a survey of all 50 SSA's on the use of medication assisted treatment and performance measures. All 50 States and the District of Columbia responded to the data manager survey and 40 States (79%) responded to the inquiry of Single State Authorities. Three quarters (72.5%) of States collected patient diagnosis. However, just 14 States (28 %) captured whether patients received MAT and only 8 (16%) were able to identify the type of MAT. In addition, only 12 (23.5%) states claimed to use an electronic health record system. Although many States reported that MAT was available, a majority reported that they do not mandate that a prescribing professional be on the treatment site at least once a week. With few exceptions, States' technological capacity to support and the availability of MAT appears uneven. Even as the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (2010) may dramatically change the payment and delivery systems for SUDs, without targeted infrastructure investment in States' and specialty care system, health reform is unlikely to sufficiently expand the existing treatment systems' MAT capacity.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Chronic disease management and prevention
Public health administration or related administration
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Describe how substance abuse treatment evolved apart from medicine. Identify the implications that the separate and unequal evolution has had for infrastructure and the adoption of evidence based practices. Assess the current capacity of States’ substance abuse treatment data systems. Identify how many States have actively adopted medications assisted treatment Assess States’ capacity to meet standards of care for the treatment of substance use disorders under health reform

Keywords: Substance Abuse Treatment, Health Reform

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I was primary invesitgator in this year long study while Senior Research Analyst at the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors. I completed a post-doc at the Treatment Research Institute under A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D. and I was a NIAAA trainee while a Ph.D student/candidate at the Heller School at Brandeis University under Constance Horgan, Ph.D.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.