National Development and Research Institutes (NDRI)

NYHealth established the Center for Excellence in Integrated Care (CEIC) in 2008 with a four-year grant to NDRI. CEIC has employed various methods to provide technical assistance to addiction and mental health programs across New York State to help them achieve integrated care for both conditions.

The primary component of the initiative involves conducting on-site assessments of a program’s capability to provide integrated care with a tool called the Dual Diagnosis Capability in Addiction [Mental Health] Treatment (DDCA[MH]T) index. To measure whether changes had occurred since the first site visits, CEIC conducted a second round of the DDCA[MH]T assessments with a representative sample of 150 programs across New York State.

This project established whether there have been improvements in the overall effectiveness of addiction and mental health outpatient programs to deliver integrated services for clients with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Data from the DDCA[MH]T assessments was used to measure specific outpatient program improvements in the areas of screening, assessment, and evidence-based treatment, as well as factors related to areas of improvement, such as staff composition, public-versus-private funded programs, or geographical settings.