The ATTC/NIATx Service Improvement Blog - Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network

Embracing Change: The Fluidity of Evidence-Based SBIRT

Published: 08/04/2022

By Diana Padilla, CLC, CARC, CASAC-T, on behalf of Northeast & Caribbean ATTC The SBIRT Framework Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment, also referred to as SBIRT, is an evidence-based practice designed to intervene with people who are at risk of health and psychosocial consequences stemming from their risky levels of alcohol consumption and/or […]

Embracing Change: How Northwest ATTC is Helping Programs Enhance Their Co-occurring Disorder Services – A Model for Success

Published: 07/21/2022

By Denna Vandersloot, co-director, Northwest Addiction Technology Transfer Center Many clients seeking care for their substance use disorder also have co-occurring mental health disorders – and vice versa. Treating both types of conditions at the same time by providing quality integrated services is more effective than treating each disorder separately. Yet while integrated care has […]

Embracing Change: Diversity Inclusion Project Showcase (DIPS) Promotes Recovery Community Organizations

Published: 07/07/2022

Editor's note: This post is part of the ATTC Network's "Embracing Change" series. The work to curb the impact of opioid use disorder and other forms of addiction is diverse and expansive. However, one fundamental portion of the effort comes via Recovery Community Organizations (RCOs), which deliver needed recovery support services to community members from […]

SUD and Beyond: Schools Use NIATx To Improve Youth Suicide Prevention Efforts

Published: 06/14/2022

By: Kristina Spannbauer, Great Lakes ATTC, MHTTC, & PTTC Communications Specialist The NIATx model for process improvement was initially based on the question: Could the strategies used to improve processes in manufacturing and other industries be used to improve services in other fields, such as in substance use disorder (SUD), mental health, and educational settings? […]

A Glimpse of New York State’s Program to Address Hepatitis C and SUD

Published: 05/17/2022

Public health officials in New York State have launched a new learning collaborative aiming to integrate Hepatitis C testing and treatment into Opioid Treatment Programs. One of the ATTC Network's products, Guide to Integrating HCV Services into Opioid Treatment Programs, played a key role in helping launch the collaborative. Here's our Q&A with Mehvish Bhatti, project […]

Alcohol is STILL a Drug

Published: 04/14/2022

April was first designated as Alcohol Awareness Month in 1987 to increase public awareness about the prevention and treatment of alcohol use disorder—which remains a tenacious public health concern in the U.S. For decades, substance use disorder (SUD) treatment focused on alcohol use disorder (Kinney, 2021). “Gradually, other substances such as freebase cocaine, crack cocaine, […]

Five Obstacles to Providing Substance Use & Mental Health Services for Black Americans

Published: 04/08/2022

Black people in the United States have rates of mental health conditions and substance use comparable to the general population. Yet outcomes for Black/African American people are poorer overall compared to the general population. A recent study found that older Black men were dying of opioid overdose at a rate four times greater than the […]

Recruit-Hire-Retain: Navigating COVID-19 staffing challenges in behavioral healthcare

Published: 02/25/2022

Mat Roosa, LCSW-RNIATx Coach “Our program is fully staffed with a diverse and skilled team. Our team members usually stay for a long time, but when a staff member does leave, we are able to quickly hire a qualified replacement.” How many of today’s leaders in behavioral health can make such a claim? Could this […]

Change Project 911 In Review

Published: 01/19/2022

Thank you for coming along on this Change Project 911 journey with Mat Roosa, the guest blogger for the series. Below you will find a list of all the Change Project 911 NIATx series with a short blurb. Select the title to read the full content of each blog. Help! My Project is Dragging on […]

Change Project 911: No Time for a Change Project: Finding Time vs. Making Choices

Published: 01/03/2022

Mat Roosa, LCSW-RNIATx Coach “The change seems like a good idea, but we just don’t have the time to do it. Let’s come back to this next year when we have more resources." No time for a change project:Finding time vs. making choices Why do so many good change ideas end up at the bottom […]

A Storied Career: Interview with 2021 NAADAC Enlightenment Award Winner, Mark Sanders

Published: 12/15/2021

Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC, is the Illinois State Project Manager for the Great Lakes ATTC, MHTTC, and PTTC. Mark is a published author, trainer, educator, and mentor, as well as the founder of the Online Museum of African American Addictions, Treatment, and Recovery and the co-founder of Serenity Academy of Chicago, the only recovery high school in […]

Change Project 911: Unable to sustain a change

Published: 11/19/2021

Mat Roosa, LCSW-RNIATx Coach “It’s easy to quit drinking. I’ve done it a thousand times.” W.C. Fields Change is easy. Sustaining change is not so easy. This is true for personal changes like quitting smoking, exercising more, driving slower, or keeping the house more organized. It is also true for workplace systems changes, such as […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 10: Initiating Medications for Opioid Use Disorder—There’s an App for That?!?

Published: 10/28/2021

To support the utilization of Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD), the Office Based Addiction Treatment Training and Technical Assistance (OBAT TTA) team will be releasing a mobile application that will guide healthcare providers through the initiation of buprenorphine and naltrexone for OUD (including injectable buprenorphine) and pain management for patients on these medications via […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 9: History of AMERSA with Sid Schnoll

Published: 10/27/2021

Sid Schnoll, one of the founders of AMERSA, discusses with Paula Lum the origin of the organization out of the Career Teacher Program of the early 1970s. The desire by the federal government to cultivate experts in substance use disorders into health professional schools has resulted in a vibrant, growing organization that helps health educators […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 8: Key Conversations: Dismantling Racism Against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Across the Substance Use Continuum

Published: 10/21/2021

The Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance use and Addiction (AMERSA) released a solidarity statement and a position paper articulating racism’s deadly effects on persons who use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. This cascade of negative effects, compounded with the social determinants of health results in higher rates of incarceration, increased risk of […]

Change Project 911: Customers don’t notice improvements

Published: 10/18/2021

Mat Roosa, LCSW-RNIATx Coach How do we know if a change is an improvement? Change teams and change leaders ask this question frequently. It often refers to the measures and data they’re using to monitor change results. But there is another and perhaps more meaningful way to ask this question: How do our customers know […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 7: Palliative Care: Bridging the Gap for Addiction Treatment in People with Serious Illness

Published: 10/13/2021

Substance Use Disorders are common in people with serious illness and contribute immensely to suffering and poor quality of life. People with addiction and serious illness are an underserved population with unmet and complex medical and psychosocial needs. In this episode, Palliative care clinicians will discuss the overlap between both fields, educational initiatives, patient cases, […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 6: Leveraging Media and Medicine to Reduce Stigma and Improve Access to Addiction Treatment

Published: 10/07/2021

The COVID-19 pandemic is distinct from other catastrophic events because of massive population exposure to ongoing trauma. Illness, death, loss, grief, job- and food-insecurity have led to increased substance use, return to use/relapse, overdose and death. In the face of widespread misinformation, accurate and engaging health messaging matters NOW more than ever. Health messaging should […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 5: Are Peer Counselors the Missing Link in Addiction Care?

Published: 09/29/2021

This episode of the AMERSA People & Passion podcast highlights peers in an acute care setting engaging with vulnerable patients suffering from active substance use disorder, with a focus on the intersection of lived experience, evidence-based treatment, and harm reduction strategies. Discussion centers around the safe space a peer creates in an environment that is traditionally […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 4: A Path for Substance Use Disorder Content in the Education Setting

Published: 09/27/2021

Join AMERSA and ATTC in celebrating a journey through AMERSA time with Marianne Marcus, in conversation with Sid Schnoll. This podcast summarizes Dr. Marianne Marcus’ career as a nurse educator and researcher, and the role AMERSA played in developing her understanding of substance use disorders. Her career included sequential faculty positions in Herman H. Lehman […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 3: Barriers to Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder: Why Aren’t Pharmacists Stocking Buprenorphine?

Published: 09/22/2021

Patients with opioid use disorder must be able to obtain prescribed buprenorphine from a pharmacy promptly to reduce risk for a recurrence of use and subsequent morbidity and mortality. However, phone-based secret shopper surveys indicate many pharmacies do not consistently maintain an adequate stock of buprenorphine and qualitative surveys show some pharmacists refuse to dispense […]

Change Project 911: Help! How do we deal with change project interruptions?

Published: 09/17/2021

Mat Roosa, LCSW-RNIATx Coach Maintaining forward momentum on top priorities Once your team has developed a change project and you have strong executive support, it might seem like things should be smooth sailing. But there are a number of ways that a strong project can be blown off course. Competing priorities Before the 1900s, the […]

AMERSA People & Passion, Episode 2: Stigma – The Not So Silent Killer

Published: 09/13/2021

"> The use of alcohol and other drugs is rising in the United States in the setting of Covid-19. In the 12-month period ending in May 2020, more than 80,000 people in the U.S. lost their lives to a drug overdose, the highest number ever recorded in a single year. Substance use and addiction affect […]

Introducing the "AMERSA People & Passion" Podcast, Sponsored by the ATTC Network

Published: 09/08/2021

AMERSA is proud to announce a new podcast exploring the world of substance use education, research, care and policy! AMERSA People & Passion is a 10-episode series sponsored by the ATTC Network and hosted by executive director Doreen Baeder, featuring subject matter experts across a variety of topics, as well as special guests detailing their […]

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