Director's Corner
Director's
Update - Fall 2006
Kimberly A. Johnson, Director
We are excited to have received two grants this fall that will help
us transform the way treatment services are delivered. The first, the
STAR-SI grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and the federal
Department of Health and Human Services, will expand the efforts we began
in January to use business process improvement techniques to increase
access and retention. Eleven agencies are currently involved in this
project and we will add six more over the course of the coming year.
The first state-wide change project that we are undertaking is for all
eleven agencies to provide assessment on demand rather than scheduling
appointments with a goal of increasing the number of people who complete
the first step of the treatment process. As I write, we are collecting
pre-change data to use as baseline. The change project will begin on
October 23.
The second grant comes from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation and is
called Advancing Recovery. The goal of this grant is to change state
bureaucratic processes and work with provider organizations to increase
the use of evidenced-based practice. We have chosen two evidenced-based
practices on which to focus our efforts. The first is the expansion of
medication assisted therapies not just for opiate addiction, but also
to treat addiction to other drugs including alcohol. The second is to
expand outreach and wrap services for special populations including refugees
and families involved with the child welfare system.
We see these two grants as synergistic. As the first grant changes business
practices to open access and bring more people into treatment that previously
were unable to maneuver the barriers, the second grant supports the clinical
changes necessary to better serve the new people showing up for treatment.
Both of these grants will force us to take a hard look at state regulation
that may inhibit access and the use of evidenced-based practices, and
OSA has made a commitment to the funders to change the practices identified
as barriers.
OSA has been an active participant in the public health work group’s
efforts to design Maine’s public health infrastructure. This group
and its many subcommittees have worked diligently to design a system
that is right for Maine. Osa will continue to work with other partners
to support this infrastructure in various ways as it is further developed.
For more information on the Public Health Workgroup, visit www.maine.gov/dhhs/boh/phwg/phwg.htm.
From OSA’s perspective this effort supports the other system transformation
we are attempting which is funded by another federal grant from the Center
for Substance Abuse Prevention. We are using data to choose our funding
priorities and have learned from other public health efforts that we
will get the most bang from our buck by supporting a public health strategy
or what is frequently called environmental strategies. We are looking
at the risks in the environment that affect all citizens and developing
interventions that are effective across a broad spectrum of the population
rather than focusing on individual risk and resiliency as we have in
the past. Research has shown that in order to make population level changes
we need to focus on population level techniques. This is a 180° shift
for our field and we have asked a lot from providers, but they are taking
the challenge on with relish and excited about some of our early results.
For example, in looking at our most recent school survey data, alcohol
and drug use continue to decrease across all age groups from 6th through
12th grade. Lifetime use of alcohol for 6th through 12th graders in Maine
has decreased by 16% since 2000. In 2000 just over half of eight graders
had already tried alcohol, by 2006 that number was down to just under
37%, a decrease of 27%!
In other efforts that are shared with the ME CDC&P, we have completed
the transition to using one data collection tool for all of our prevention
providers. Thanks to OSA staff Geoff Miller and Chris Baumgartner, the
system development and training necessary to help the Healthy Maine Partnerships
shift to using the KIT Solutions software went smoothly, or at least
appeared smooth to all involved.
Finally, in January our HIV-AIDs contractors will have one DHHS contract
for HIV-AIDs prevention as OSA again joins forces with the ME CDC&P
to reduce paperwork and provide better oversight for these jointly funded
programs. Now they will have one contract and one budget and one quarterly
report to file and we will manage information flow between the two offices
behind the scenes.
Thank you for visiting our website. Please email us at osa.ircosa.maine.gov if you need assistance accessing any information. We are here to make
Maine a healthier, safer place.
Previous Updates
What's New - Spring 2006
What's New - Fall 2005
What's New - Summer 2005
What's New - Spring 2005
What's New - Winter 2005
What's New - Summer 2004
What's New - Spring 2004
What's New - August 2003
What's New - January 2003
What's New - August 2002
