Adapting and Evaluating Evidence Based Practices in Real World Settings
TRI researchers are evaluating aftercare and other extended care models in public and private treatment settings. Ultimately, the goal is to develop affordable protocols promoting long-term recovery through continuous care and monitoring of patients.
For a single state agency, TRI helped develop and evaluate a continuum of performance-based purchasing strategies that reward providers for improvements in processes of care (i.e., higher treatment retention rates).
Motivational incentives to encourage patients to enter and stay in treatment are being adapted and tested to determine if they are affordable and acceptable to providers.
TRI conducts extensive research on drug courts and other problem solving models. The role of judicial status hearings in drug court, as well as services research on rewards and sanctions, are among the areas of TRI expertise.
Evidence Based Assessment, Referral and Tracking Systems
The Addiction Severity Index, developed by TRI co-founder A. Thomas McLellan and his colleagues, is used by trained clinicians to assess symptom severity and develop treatment plans matched to patient need. Also developed by McLellan and colleagues, the Treatment Services Review generates a quantitative record of the services a client receives during treatment, helping managers audit programs and verify fidelity to treatment plans.
The DENS software system reduces data collection burdens and provides clinical meaning to the assessment process. Trained clinicians electronically enter ASI data and receive narrative case reports to use in treatment planning. When DENS is installed in a system of providers, local trends in drug use and substance-related problems can be tracked.
A computer-assisted patient referral system helps providers quickly locate community-based auxiliary services matched to patient needs. In systems where clinicians have been trained on “CASPAR,” evaluations show increased referrals based on client need, longer episodes of patient care, and less counselor turn-over.
Two web-based systems are designed for judges and others who work with substance abusing offenders. TRI’s Court Evaluation Program, TRI-CEP™ fosters research derived program evaluation and continuous improvement, and includes adaptive management features promoting rapid adjustment of supervision or treatment conditions based on change in client status. The Risk and Needs Triage is a decision support tool promoting assignment of drug-involved offenders to the community programs best matched to their assessed level of risk and needs.
Training and Consultation
TRI is a world-renowned ASI training center. Standardized, empirically developed manuals help clinicians make the best use of TRI assessment tools.
Drug court trainings teach judges how to use treatment data to apply the right mix of sanctions and rewards to enhance client outcomes.
Consultation on performance-based purchasing, and continuous recovery and continuous patient tracking, and other best practices is offered by experienced TRI investigators.
The “Brief Intervention for Substance Abusing Adolescents” is a CD Rom training that teaches clinicians and college-based counselors techniques for working with teens and young adults with low to moderate use of drugs or alcohol.
Behavioral
Interventions
Law
& Ethics
Treatment
Systems Research
Center
on the Continuum of Care:
Monitoring
and Adapting Addiction Treatment
Center
for Policy Research and
Analysis
Adolescents
Treatment
Research Solutions
Wharton-TRI
Center on the
Organization
and Management of Addiction Treatment
Clinical
Trials Network
Addiction
Severity Index (ASI)
Other
Assessment Instruments
Publications
Presentations
Archives
Training
Order
TRI Resources
Contact
Us
Sign
up for E-Alerts