The Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment

The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment is supporting a demonstration project through the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx). NIATx will provide technical assistance to opioid treatment programs, with the goal of improving program operations to eliminate barriers and delays in patient admissions, thus improving access to care.

NIATx teaches organizations to use a simple process improvement model developed under the leadership of Dr. David Gustafson, who is an industrial engineer. NIATx is part of the Center for Health Enhancement System Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

NIATx helps behavioral health providers improve access to and retention in treatment for all of their clients. NIATx accomplishes this primarily by helping treatment providers use process improvement methods to achieve the four NIATx aims:

• Reduce waiting times
• Reduce no-shows
• Increase admissions
• Increase continuation in treatment