The field of addiction treatment has been plagued by its lack of scientific measurements and outcomes for decades. It is well-known that addiction treatment works, and that recovery is possible, but without the subsequent data and recovery outcomes, that knowledge can only go so far. Fortunately, many individual addiction treatment centers and rehabs, as well as many professionals within the fields of behavioral health, addiction treatment, education, and science are taking steps to change the addiction treatment field for the better by moving towards a more data-driven approach that includes patient recovery outcomes.
One of those initiatives is FoRSE, or more specifically, The FoRSE Addiction Treatment Outcome Program. A program through the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP), the addiction treatment field’s largest trade organization, FoRSE stands for NAATP Foundation for Recovery Science and Education. According to the NAATP website, “FoRSE has developed a database that allows individual SUD treatment centers to submit de-identified patient data on a set of prescribed demographic and outcomes measures. FoRSE is not a new app, portal, or other digital health tool and does not replace any other system used for data collection.” Instead, the NAATP website goes on to detail, FoRSE offers “a decentralized Data Repository and Application Programming Interface (API), allowing data sharing from different technology systems, with the ability to provide confidential site-specific benchmarking reports on the aggregated data. Our interest is in the stories of recovery that are told in data, not in creating new tools and technologies. For providers who do not yet have a system in place to collect patient survey data, FoRSE can direct them to vendors that are already linked to our database.”
In short, the FoRSE initiative developed by the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP) is a first-of-its-kind national effort to demonstrate the value of addiction healthcare and expand the reach of recovery to more who need it. Additionally, FoRSE will allow addiction treatment centers and rehabs to compare their data of patient progress and patient outcomes to aggregated data from treatment centers nationwide. This will allow treatment centers and their staff to see where their outcomes compare to the outcomes of other facilities and then collaborate on best practices to better ensure overall patient progress and recovery outcomes as a field.
As an organization, MARC is proud to be an official data site for FoRSE. It is important that we as an organization continue to enhance our services utilizing the latest evidence-based clinical and medical tools at our disposal, so that we may regularly look at and improve the care of treatment services we deliver and ultimately continue to improve recovery outcomes for the patients and families that we service. However, it was also vitally important to us that in doing so, we were also making a concerted effort to improve the treatment and recovery outcomes of the field as a whole, so that those in our society and our communities impacted by addiction, substance use, and co-occurring disorders received the very best clinical and medical care and overall outcomes. FoRSE offers us that unique opportunity.
“We are grateful for the work that NAATP is doing to move the needle in regard to better outcomes in the field of addiction treatment,” said MARC Co-Founder and Corporate Director of Marketing Zach Snitzer. “We are additionally grateful to Dr. Annie Peters and the leadership and staff at NAATP for allowing Maryland Addiction Recovery Center the opportunity to take part in FoRSE, being an official FoRSE data site, and giving us an opportunity to play a part in bettering our field and better serving those impacted by addiction through science, data, and outcomes.”
If you or someone you know needs help for addiction or co-occurring disorder issues, please give us a call. Maryland Addiction Recovery Center offers the most comprehensive dual diagnosis addiction treatment in the Mid-Atlantic area. If we aren’t the best fit for you or your loved one, we will take the necessary time to work with you to find a treatment center or provider that better fits your needs. Please give us a call at (410) 773-0500 or email our team at info@marylandaddictionrecovery.com. For more information on all of our drug addiction, alcohol addiction and co-occurring disorder services and recovery resources, please visit our web site at www.marylandaddictionrecovery.com.
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