Dr Winston Collins Outlines Interaction Needed to Treat Patients Recovering From Substance Use Disorder

Health systems will need to be able to provide multiple services to treat and support people recovering from substance use disorder, which requires interaction and communication, said Winston Collins, PhD, program director for substance use services at the John F. Kennedy Behavioral Health Centers.

Transcript

Substance use disorder is sometimes referred to as a disease of despair and is cited by the CDC as one of the reasons US life expectancy is dropping. What kind of partnerships need to be developed by healthcare systems in order to effectively treat the people they serve?

So, it’s going to be rare that those served by our healthcare system are going to only need 1 particular service today, for 1 particular problem. It’s going to be important that there is joint interaction, joint communication among all of the service providers that are involved in the care of every single patient.

Hospitals, for example—have nurse navigators. On the behavioral health side, where I am, we have a new entity now—we’ve has these folk maybe for about 5 years—they’re called certified recovery specialists. The certified recovery specialist is responsible for identifying the treatment needs that the person may bring, as well as the supportive case management needs—housing, food, community or legal services, maybe that person wants to get a GED—that person becomes aware, and that certified recovery specialist is going to be responsible for connecting that individual to all the services that individual needs in order to recover.