About MAPS
MAPS is a small, member-supported and member-directed, collaborative project to design and empirically evaluate strategies for reforming administrative, regulatory, purchasing and/or organizational practices that are impeding quality improvement within systems of care. Currently, four state partners are working with TRI: North Carolina; Maryland; Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and a number of additional states are actively planning with TRI to join the program. (A separate "MAP-C" program for California counties is being organized since it is the counties that contract for treatment services in that State.)
MAPS is supported by the partnering states through a membership fee, with TRI playing host to the group and providing technical expertise, as well as evaluation and analytical support.
It was apparent from the outset of MAPS that states wanted at least four things from TRI:
The basic MAPS membership consists of three components. In the first component, MAPS members participate in two, one-day policy forums per year convened by TRI on specific issues of mutual interest. The forums join the state participants in MAPS with TRI staff, along with other relevant experts, to foster discussion of a specific issue and to develop consensus strategies for moving the issue forward. Policy papers and other relevant materials are used as a springboard for discussion at the forums. In addition to the policy forums, MAPS members are invited to participate in an invitation-only conference convened by TRI and the Wharton School that applies knowledge gained from other industries to issues that are emerging in the treatment industry.
In the second component of MAPS, members select specific policy, performance, business, organization, and/or financing projects that they would like to pilot test in a small subset of their treatment systems. TRI provides three days of consultation to each state, providing assistance in deciding how to purse that policy project, describing promising approaches tried by other states or suggested by the research literature, and helping the state design a practical improvement and evaluation protocol.
The third component of MAPS consists of legislative briefings. Each member of MAPS, on request, receives one legislative briefing during the year on a subject related to the policy project being implemented in the state.
TRI's preferences for the small group, mutual assistance model is explained by several factors:
For more information about MAPS or related projects, contact Olivia Stroia at ostroia@tresearch.org. To learn more about joining MAPS, contact Mady Chalk, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Policy Research and Analysis at mchalk@tresearch.org