DOH/BADAS Breakout Group

The DOH/BADAS breakout group identified the following barriers, with the first four listed in rank order.

• Lack of standardized tools among funding sources (repetition): The group noted issues of repetition, length of assessment(s), and service expectations as barriers. A potential solution the group listed was a coordinated system of care.
  
  
• ASAM criteria assumes "continuum of care" exists: Such a continuum does not exist, according to the group.
  
  
• Lack of funding: [no details]
  
  
• Resources available: There is a need for knowledge of available resources in terms of training issues and time constraints with respect to increasingly extensive tools. The group noted a potential role for public health nurses. [I combined this with another entry.]
  
  
• Lanaguage: This covered both issues of serving the hearing impaired--which the group described the system as "inadequate, cost-prohibitive" and lacking in resources to serve--and serving Latino and other immigrant communities. Immigration also raised issues about a client's legal status in the U.S.
  
  
• Medication issues: "destabilization."
  
  
• Urban-rural: "Need to look at rural v. urban assessment tool."
  

Editors note: If anyone from this group has details of the discussion on these items, please email robert.c.saunders [at] vanderbilt.edu, and I will flesh out these items.