November 8, 2007
The Joint Commission named Addiction Treatment Services at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center a 2007 winner of the 11th Annual Ernest Amory Codman Award. This prestigious award recognizes achievement by organizations and individuals in the use of process and outcomes measures to improve quality and safety of health care.
Addiction Treatment Services (ATS) is the recipient of the award in the behavioral health category and is recognized for its Motivated Stepped Care (MSC) treatment model. MSC is a comprehensive approach to treatment that includes an organized set of behavioral incentives to motivate and reinforce high rates of attendance to clinical services. It was developed in the 1990s to address poor counseling attendance and high rates of continuing heroin and cocaine use in many patients.
Clinical services under the MSC model include routine and specialized individual and group therapies for substance use and other psychiatric problems, specific behavioral interventions to motivate therapy attendance and resolve chronic unemployment, and a wide range of medications to reduce drug use and resolve other types of health problems. Positive results have been consistently found across several different evaluations of the MSC treatment approach compared to other treatment programs in the greater Baltimore area and across the country.
These results include:
- decreased rates of heroin and cocaine use
- increased therapy session attendance rates
- increased paid employment, from 73 to 90 percent
The treatment approach is consistently associated with outstanding ratings on annual employee satisfaction surveys. Aspects of the model also have been adopted by several treatment programs throughout the Baltimore region.
MSC is unique in that it adjusts the amount of clinical services patients receive based on their response to treatment. For example, patients with poor responses to lower intensities of care are moved to higher intensities of treatment until they improve, then return to lower intensities for continuing care. MSC also offers behavioral incentives that motivate patients to attend therapy sessions, such as preferential scheduling for therapy sessions and medical treatment.
Says Robert K. Brooner, Ph.D., director of Addiction Treatment Services at Johns Hopkins Bayview, "A primary goal of the MSC model is to use the least intensive and intrusive schedule of services necessary to help patients achieve and sustain a strong ongoing recovery from substance use disorder."
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ATS at Johns Hopkins Bayview is a nationally recognized leader in the development of both innovative and effective treatment interventions and health care delivery systems for substance use disorder. The program specializes in the treatment of moderate to severe substance use disorder, including patients suffering from other psychiatric problems and chronic pain.
Learn more at www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Psychiatry/bayivew/addiction_ATS.
An independent, not-for-profit organization, The Joint Commission is the nation's oldest and largest standards setting and accrediting body in health care. Founded in 1951, The Joint Commission evaluates and accredits nearly 15,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. In addition, The Joint Commission provides certification of disease-specific care programs, primary stroke centers and health care staffing services.
Find out more about The Joint Commission at www.jointcommission.org.
