The NSW Ministry of Health is leading a project to develop a national population based model for drug and alcohol service planning, known as the National Drug and Alcohol Clinical Care and Prevention Modelling Project (DA-CCP). Central to the project is the establishment of a set of ideal treatment pathways, which represent the services that any one typical client may receive over the course of a typical year (categorized by age, severity of dependence and drug type).
The goal of this project is to generate empirical data showing the treatment pathways taken by people before they enter the Opioid Treatment Program (OTP) in NSW. The project aims to make service system development recommendations for policy makers based on the documented treatment pathways and an assessment of the implications of inaccessibility of treatment for the pathways taken.
The centrepiece of the project is a census of people who enter OTP in NSW during September and October 2012, using a self-complete instrument mailed to their dispensing point.
The survey was completed in 2012 and a report presented to the NSW Ministry of Health in January 2013.
Papers:
Chalmers, J., Phillips, B., Gray-Weale, F. and Ritter, A. (2013) ‘Treatment Pathways from the client’s perspective: informing a better match between service provision and service need’. Report prepared for NSW Ministry of Health. Sydney: Drug Policy Modelling Program, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW.
Presentations:
Chalmers, J. (2013, April). Treatment pathways from the client’s perspective: Informing a better match between service provision and service need. NSW Health Drug and Alcohol Program Council, Sydney, 12 April.