Funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in October 2012, the National SBIRT ATTC seeks to advance SBIRT national as a timely public health model—a model worthy and in need of advancement to reach its full potential impact on the health of Americans. As the new National SBIRT ATTC, we will coordinate multiple national SBIRT initiatives by offering a Suite of Services to advance the adoption of SBIRT practices within systems.
The Institute for Research, Education and Training (IRETA) is the parent organization of the National SBIRT ATTC. Formerly the Northeast ATTC for Pennsylvania and New York, IRETA has been designated a national SBIRT focus center because of our decade-long work to promote its use in a range of settings among a variety of professionals. IRETA served as the lead training organization for the state of Pennsylvania’s 2003-2008 SBIRT grant and now works with emergency room nurses, anesthesiology students, and an intraprofessional healthcare collaborative serving rural Pennsylvanians, among others, on SBIRT training and implementation.
To further expand our capacity and deepen our expertise, we are partnering with the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC) to help healthcare and EAP providers utilize the SBIRT model.
We’ve been working hard over the last four months to get the National SBIRT ATTC up and running. We have launched many of the resources and activities that will make up our suite of services and plan on adding more. So far, these services include:
Peter Luongo, PhD (Principal Investigator): joined IRETA as Executive Director in August 2011. He served for 7 years as the SSA for the State of Maryland and prior to that served in senior executive positions in Montgomery County, MD health and human services. He has served as PI and Co-PI for federal grants and is considered an expert clinician, teacher of clinicians and organizational consultant.
Holly Hagle, PhD (Program Director): has been working with SBIRT since 2003 and has been the lead in implementation since 2006 in all IRETA SBIRT funded projects including the two HRSA funded projects with the University of Pittsburgh, School of Nursing, PA and NY state SBIRT projects, and multiple other SBIRT training and implementation projects.
Dawn Lindsay, PhD (Evaluator): has been on the staff of IRETA since April 2011. She is the NIDA Blending Liaison for the SBIRT ATTC and managed recruitment and data collection for the recent ATTC Workforce Survey. She also oversees other research and evaluation projects for IRETA. She has eight years of past experience conducting federally-funded research in adolescent substance use disorders.
Eric Goplerud, PhD (National SBIRT ATTC Partner): serves as Director of NORC’s Department of Substance Abuse, Mental Health, and Criminal Justice Studies. The Department conducts large and small-area survey research, policy analyses, program evaluations, technical assistance and training across a broad array of behavioral health and justice issues
Tracy McPherson, PhD (National SBIRT ATTC Partner): is the Senior Research Scientist at NORCs Department of Substance Abuse, Mental Health, and Criminal Justice Studies. She has been at NORC since 2011. She co-leads the BIG Initiative and Hospital SBIRT Initiatives.
SBIRT continues to evolve. Since researchers began to study its effectiveness in 1993, we have learned a great deal about workflow, financing, screening tools, and the range of behavioral health issues it can address. The environment is also changing— the Affordable Care Act’s effort to reduce our country’s steep healthcare costs and its emphasis on prevention and wellness are creating a fertile environment for SBIRT practices to grow. Stay in the loop about SBIRT’s evolution by connecting with the National SBIRT ATTC.
Subscribe to the SBIRT Alert to receive updates on these and other learning opportunities.