Developing a national addiction treatment information system - An introduction to the Drug Evaluation Network System

The purpose of this article is to test the applicability and utility of the Drug Evaluation Network Study (DENS), a timely electronic information syst em that tracks trends in substance abuse treatment. This article examines e xisting large-scale data collection efforts, discusses the rationale and de sign of the DENS system, and presents results of the DENS pilot phase. Clin ical staff from more than 40 service delivery units in five cities were tra ined to conduct intake assessments on laptop computers with the computerize d Addiction Severity Index (ASI). The DENS computer system also included an automatic data transfer protocol to allow regular transmission of ASIs and other data to a central sewer at Treatment Research Institute. Descriptive information and discharge status were also collected. Several problems wer e encountered during the early stages of the pilot phase, including obtaini ng consecutive cases from treatment programs, computerization and software application, treatment staff turnover, and assuring quality of data. Data i s presented on 4,300 adults entering drug and/or alcohol treatment at the n onrandomly selected DENS pilot programs between June 1996 and April 6 1998. Various examples of how DENS data can be used are presented. (C) 1999 Else vier Science Inc. All rights reserved.