Övgü Kaynak¹, Robert Forman, PhD¹, J. Aaron Johnson, PhD², and Sarah Henderson, MA³. (1) Treatment Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania, 3440 Market Street, Suite 370, Philadelphia, PA 19104, 215-746-7706, kaynak_o@mail.trc.upenn.edu, (2) Center for Research on Behavioral Health and Human Services Delivery, University of Georgia, 101 Barrow Hall, D. W. Brooks Drive, Athens, GA 30602, (3) Institute for Behavioral Research, University of Georgia, 101 Barrow Hall, D. W. Brooks Drive, Athens, GA 30602

Quality improvement programs are a required administrative function in most health care organizations including substance abuse treatment programs. In fact, having a plan in place for assessing and addressing issues related to program quality is a requirement of most accrediting bodies such as JCAHO. Though substance abuse treatment programs have made tremendous progress in integrating themselves into the larger healthcare field over the past two decades, the extent to which they have adopted and implemented such programs is unknown. This paper will examine the presence and comprehensiveness of quality management programs in nationally representative samples of 800 public and private treatment programs. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which programs measure quality and the processes they have in place for addressing the problems or needs highlighted by these measures. Results indicate that programs for assessing and addressing quality are more prevalent in privately funded programs, particularly for profits. Though most collect and evaluate data on clients’ satisfaction, few programs have implemented comprehensive quality improvement initiatives. Furthermore, most programs have not developed means for addressing problems identified in satisfaction surveys. Suggestions for improving the comprehensiveness and follow through in quality management programs are discussed. (Supported by the NIDA Clinical Trials Network and NIDA grants R01-DA13110 and R01-DA14482).

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