Joint Commission Seeks Comments on SBIRT Proposals (posted 9/9)

The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is requesting public comment on proposed new hospital performance measures requiring screening, brief intervention, referral or treatment (SBIRT) for patients who show excessive alcohol use, use of illicit drugs, misuse of prescription drugs, or tobacco use.

If adopted, the SBIRT measures will address some of the nation’s greatest unmet healthcare needs in hospitals throughout the U.S. At present one in four U.S. hospital admissions is related to alcohol, tobacco or other drug use, and more than two million deaths in the United States each year, approximately one in four, is attributable to the use of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs. Screening admitted patients for tobacco, alcohol and substance use, and initiating treatment in the hospital for these conditions makes good clinical sense.

Specifically, the proposed Joint Commission measures would require that:

1. All admitted patients are screened for excessive alcohol use, use of illicit drugs, misuse of prescription drugs, or tobacco use.

2. All patients with a positive screen receive a brief intervention.

3. All patients with a positive screen who are found to have alcohol or drug dependence or tobacco dependence will have treatment initiated in the hospital or be referred to treatment at discharge.

4. All patients be contacted within two weeks post hospital discharge and offered additional help as needed.

The Joint Commission accredits nearly 16,000 health care organizations in the U.S., covering approximately 95% of all hospital beds in the country. Because substance use problems cause or complicate over 50 different medical conditions involving every organ system, the importance of enactment of these new measures cannot be overstated.

To submit comments, visit: www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=1TBtOYyNkkAJYVQIb6jG8g_3d_3d. The public comment period will run from September 1 to September 30.

For more information click here.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Substance Abuse Treatment (posted 9/9)

The Substance Abuse Policy Research Program recently released a policy brief on the 2002 Institute of Medicine publication Unequal Treatment (Smedley et al, 2002) that found that minorities in the United States generally receive inferior health care and have worse health outcomes than Caucasians.  The policy brief entitled Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Substance Abuse Treatment reviews the efforts that have been made since the release of Unequal Treatment to understand and address racial and ethnic disparities and respond to Congress' goal of reducing these inequities by 2010.  The policy brief states that the efforts that have been made to date are unlikely to succeed if improvements in substance abuse prevention and treatment are not achieved. For all Americans, not just racial and ethnic minorities, substance abuse is one of the most damaging, difficult and expensive health problem facing the country today.  Click here for more information.  To read the policy brief click here.

NNED Partner of the Month

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country the NNED selects an organization to highlight once a month.  The National Latino Behavioral Health Association (NLHBHA) has been selected as NNED Partner of the Month in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 - October 15.

NLBHA was established in Washington, D.C. in 2000 to fill a need for a unified national voice for Latino populations in the behavioral health arena and to bring attention to the great disparities that exist in areas of access, utilization, practice based research and adequately trained personnel. As a membership organization, NLBHA influences national behavioral health policy to eliminate disparities in funding and access to services for Latino populations. NLBHA does this by convening policy roundtables, providing cultural competence trainings, collaborating with other national racial/ethnic behavioral health organizations, and by disseminating best and promising practices for Latino populations. For more information visit the NLBHA website.

Hispanic Heritage Month: Sept. 15 was chosen as the starting point for the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month because it is the anniversary of the independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on Sept. 16 and Sept. 18, respectively.

CDC Releases Procedural Guidance on HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care (posted 9/2)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed a guide for community-based-organizations (CBOs) to increase the number of persons living with HIV who know that they are infected and to give them and persons at high risk for HIV infection the best tools available for staying healthy and reducing the chance of giving HIV to others.  These guidelines were developed within the framework of CDC's 2003 initiative, Advancing HIV Prevention: New Strategies for a Changing Epidemic (AHP).  This Procedural Guidance document gives information to help CBOs come up with a plan for delivering interventions.  It will help organizations design prevention programs and recruitment strategies to promote counseling and testing, health education and risk reduction, and other prevention services; counseling, testing, and referral strategies; and interventions to help prevent the spread of HIV to meet the needs of persons living with HIV, their partners, and other persons who are not HIV infected but are at very high risk for HIV.  Click here to download the document from the CDC website.

The Procedural Guidance document does not give all of the information organizations will need to design, deliver, and monitor the interventions suggested in the guidelines.  CDC will help organizations with more training and technical assistance.  Information about the interventions is available at Diffusion of Effective Behavioral Interventions (DEBI) .

White House Official: President Committed To Addressing HIV/AIDS (posted 9/2)

Jeff Crowley, the director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy held the first town hall meeting of many that are to be a part of the National HIV/AIDS Community Discussions that the White House launched recently.  This first town hall meeting that took place in Atlanta, Georgia is the first ever to convene to discuss a National HIV/AIDS strategy.  Jeff Crowley assured attendees that Obama is committed to a national HIV/AIDS care and prevention strategy.  "With a September deadline looming for congressional funding of the Ryan White CARE Act, Crowley assured the capacity crowd Obama was intent on refunding the act that provides state and local money for HIV care and prevention campaigns," the Southern Voice reported.  To read the Southern Voice article click here .

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