Our team is tracking the results of patients with addiction to improve the quality of care for patients across the MidSouth. This is “Real live data” about the impact of our treatment plans on our patient’s lives.
We collected data in several different areas:
- Health – visits to the emergency room or hospitalizations
- Retention in Treatment – time in treatment, attendance at scheduled treatment visits, urinary drug testing results, and relapses
- Education/Workforce Participation – participation in an educational program or securing a stable job
- Contact with the Criminal Justice System – arrests, incarceration, court appearances, or legal issues
- Social Stability with family and friends
A scoring system was developed based on the above outcomes and patients were placed in three groups:
- No Change
- Mild-Moderate Positive Change
- Exceptional Positive Change
We have divided the patients that work with our case manager into two groups:
- Compliant Patient Group – those who come regularly to appointments and consider/act on the suggestions they receive.
- Noncompliant Patient Group – those who do not come regulatory to appointments and generally ignore the suggestions they receive.
In the figure below, you can see outcomes data for the patients who have been in treatment with our social worker/case manager for 3-4 months. These data outcomes are being expanded as we see more patients every day.
Compliant Patient Group:
- 100% of the patients saw positive change.
- 55% of the patients saw mild-moderate positive change.
- 45% of the patients saw exceptional positive change.
In contrast, in the noncompliant patient group (“noncompliant change”), 100% of patients displayed no positive change.
We will continue to update our data as we see more patients and as time progresses. This data is promising for patients with addiction. The inclusion of social workers/case managers as part of the patient care team and the inclusion of the social health in the treatment plan for compliant patients are yielding promising early results.