141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

294689
Massachusetts SBIRT experience: Service integration challenges in behavioral health in the era of the affordable care act

Monday, November 4, 2013 : 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM

Alissa Cruz, MPH , Department of Medicine, MASBIRT TTA, Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA
Table 1: Integration - This Roundtable will address how an SBIRT project was implemented in clinical settings, the response of the medical team and patients, model successes and challenges, and sustainability challenges for behavioral health service integration in a medical setting.

The Massachusetts Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (MASBIRT) program was a SAMHSA funded cooperative agreement to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Bureau of Substance Abuse Services and implemented by Boston Medical Center from March 2007- March 2012. MASBIRT was implemented in 3 medical centers and 5 community health centers in the greater Boston area. Health Promotion Advocates conducted SBIRT in inpatient units, outpatient clinics, emergency/urgent care departments, and specialty clinics. Patient encounters ranged from 5-45 minutes and delivered all services at the point of care. MASBIRT had over 170,000 patient encounters that resulted in over 20,000 brief interventions and over 4,000 referrals to substance abuse treatment services. Of those patients interviewed six months after their initial encounter, the percent of patients using any substance in the previous 30 days decreased from 94.7% to 68.3%.

Learning Areas:
Administer health education strategies, interventions and programs
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Discuss findings from the SAMHSA funded state SBIRT initiative in Massachusetts

Keywords: Health Care Reform, Screening

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have an MPH, was the Program Manager for the federally-funded MASBIRT program, and am currently the Program Manager for MASBIRT Training and Technical Assistance contract at Boston Medical Center.
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.