Bureau of Substance Abuse Treatment

partners:

Massachusetts ACEP, ENA, Nurse Practitioners, Medical Interpreters Association, Boston EMS, and the Massachusetts Hospital Association
Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery (MOAR)

program

preparing health care providers, peer educators and social service professionals to screen patients for substance abuse and other behaviors that compromise health, motivate them to change behavior through a brief negotiated interview, and refer them to resources to support their agenda for change

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NEWSLETTER
 

HAPPENINGS

description of project ASSERT

More than 50 treatment providers from a variety of programs attended a breakfast meeting set up by the team at Athol/Haywood ED, beginning the process of developing a network--remarkable, considering that the lack of resources in their geographic area!

Whidden Hospital was able to leverage grant money from Join Together (see their website at www.jointogether.org)  to obtain brand new social work coverage for the ED for every day of the week.  The new Health Promotion Advocates who will begin work in May and in July will be able to access support for their services, right in the ED.

Children's Hospital invited the substance abuse team at Brookline High School to their provider meeting, and will be working closely with them to improve the care of adolescents. Dr. John Knight who developed the CRAFFT screening instrument, brought his ASAP staff to the workshop, and the ED staff became more aware of this program as a resource for their patients.

At Saint Anne's Hospital, information about the wonderful opportunities that the SBIRT program will bring to our patients will be released this week to the general hospital staff through the hospital's electronic newsletter-econnection, then published in the system-wide electronic newsletter, Caritas Connections. 
Calls have been made to the Greater Fall River community substance abuse treatment facilities, and agency representatives have been invited to a community meeting during the SBIRT training next week.

Mercy Hospital is developing alcohol/drug screening questions to be incorporated into their Meditech System, with a checkbox for those who screen positive at triage. HPAs will receive a running list positives for follow-up. SBIRT training will now be required for nursing competency assessment.

South Shore has established an in-house education team to continue providing SBIRT trainings. The workshop was received enthusiastically by a large number of of physicians and nurses. One of the local leaders described how she had seen for herself in the BMC ED that it was possible to provide a better level of care. A gentleman who came in because of having eaten tainted food ended up going to detox after she screened and did an intervention. "This is good medicine," she said.