title: Addiction treatment agencies' use of data: a qualitative assessment.
abstract: Addiction treatment agencies typically do not prioritize data collection, management, and analysis, and these agencies may have barriers to integrating data in agency quality improvement. This article describes qualitative findings from an intervention designed to teach 23 addiction treatment agencies how to make data-driven decisions to improve client access to and retention in care. Agencies demonstrated success adopting process improvement and data-driven strategies to make improvements in care. Barriers to adding a process improvement and data-driven focus to care included a lack of a data-based decision making culture, lack of expertise and other resources, treatment system complexity, and resistance. Factors related to the successful adoption of process-focused data include agency leadership valuing data and providing resources, staff training on data collection and use, sharing of change results, and success in making data-driven decisions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA. wisdomj@ohsu.edu
authors.forename: Jennifer P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Wisdom
authors.forename: James H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Ford Ii
authors.forename: Randy A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Hayes
authors.forename: Eldon
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Edmundson
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hoffman
authors.forename: Dennis
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: McCarty
mesh_terms: D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000628:therapy; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D016320:Substance Abuse Treatment Centers / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data