An interventional study of Other: quality improvement feedback system and Patient Feedback in Substance Use Disorders, sponsored by University of Pennsylvania. Completed at 2 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2012-01-20.
Sponsored by University of Pennsylvania · Not applicable and Interventional
The purpose of the study is to determine if a semi-automated quality improvement system that provides addiction counselors with feedback on their average treatment satisfaction and therapeutic alliance (as rated by patients currently in treatment) is superior to no feedback in 32 community-based outpatient addiction treatment clinics.
Quality improvement (Ql) methods are a cornerstone of business and healthcare management throughout the United States yet there have been few studies of Ql interventions in addiction treatment settings. The proposed study tests the effectiveness of one Ql system - Patient Feedback (PF) - at increasing outpatient group therapy attendance and self-reported abstinence. The feasibility and acceptability of PF was established in a six-site study conducted within the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network. In the proposed study, 32 community-based outpatient treatment programs with approximately 250 clinicians will be randomly assigned to PF, or usual clinic practices. In the PF condition, every week fro 12 weeks clinic patients are invited to complete a 12-item, self-administered survey in which they rate therapeutic alliance and treatment satisfaction, and report past week substance use. These anonymous surveys are faxed by clinic staff to a University of Pennsylvania data center where a custom software application converts the surveys into feedback reports and posts them to a password protected website. Clinicians can access their caseload feedback reports and aggregated reports for the whole clinic; supervisors can only access the aggregated clinic reports. On a monthly basis staff meet as a team to review the feedback reports and develop Ql plans intended to yield improvements in select Ql indicators. The PF website and the monthly PF e-newsletter provide social recognition, clinical resources, and a virtual community for participating clinicians. After 12 weeks, participants in both conditions complete follow-up measures and then both groups are given open access to PF for 12 additional months. During "sustainability phase" staff usage of the PF website is monitored. Alternate versions of the PF Survey are introduced during the sustainability study, including one that monitors HIV risk behavior. The rapid processing of surveys enables near real time feedback to clinic staff. Organizations may share their feedback reports with funding sources, regulatory agencies, policy makers, and other stakeholders. This centralized, semi-automated feedback system eases fulfillment of accreditation requirements and as such, reduces the cost of clinic operations.
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This study's enrollment of 118 is close to the median of 108 across 1,727 interventional studies indexed under Substance-Related Disorders.
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Exclusion Criteria:
substance abuse counselors received feedback reports on their average performance and on the average performance of the clinic as a whole. Feedback reports contained information on average alliance, treatment satisfaction, and drug/alcohol use.
Behavioral: Other: quality improvement feedback system · Behavioral: Patient Feedback
No feedback reports were provided in this arm.
Surveys patients regarding treatment experiences.
Weekly feedback reports provided to counselors
clinician average weekly caseload patient-rated therapeutic alliance
Time frame: 12 weeks
This study is completed, as verified in Jan 2012. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University of Pennsylvania