ACTION Items with Kim Johnson

Dear friends and colleagues,

When we launched the first ACTION Campaign back in September 2007, we could not have predicted how successful it would be. More than 500 agencies enrolled in just the first four months of the Campaign. By Campaign end in March 2009, nearly 1000 organizations had signed on to "Adopt Changes To Improve Outcomes Now." Participating organizations that made the recommended changes reported great results. For example:

• In Portland, Maine, Crossroads for Women increased admissions to intensive outpatient programs by 43 percent.
• Solutions Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. in Medina County, Ohio, reduced no-shows by as much as 50 percent.
• Chestnut Health Systems of Illinois increased assessments at one site by more than 30 percent.
• Oneida Behavioral Health in Oneida, Wisconsin reduced intake paperwork by 50 percent.

Of course we decided we had to offer a second Campaign. ACTION Campaign II: Financial Strength in a Changing World aims to help you improve services, reduce costs, and build financial strength in the challenging economic climate we face today. And thanks again to the generous support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Magellan, SAMHSA and the California Endowment, all Campaign resources are available to you at no charge.

NIATx member organizations have shown time and time again that improvements in access and retention really do translate into bottom line results. Over the next 18 months, ACTION Campaign II will focus on teaching you promising practices-so you can provide your clients with the best possible service and improve your bottom line.

We hope you'll join us for the bi-monthly Webinars that bring you new ideas, information, and peer networking. And just as we did in the first Campaign, we'll seek your feedback regularly on what topics and features we can cover to best meet your needs.

We also hope you'll take a moment to explore some of the exciting new features on www.niatx.net. The new Provider Toolkit contains all the information you need to get started making changes in your agency. And to help you connect, innovate, and improve, you can follow us on Twitter and the NIATx blog. Did you know we have our own YouTube Channel? http://youtube.com/niatxnpo You can view the cool videos we presented at the 2009 NIATx Summit/SAAS National Conference, and hear stories from your peers who have transformed their agencies with the NIATx model of process improvement.

I know this is a very tough time for many of you. We are designing Campaign II to be really responsive to your needs right now and position you for growth in the future. As we did last year, we look forward to working with you.

Finally, it's easy to get connected to NIATx and the ACTION Campaign II-if you have not already, just visit www.niatx.net and log on.

Thanks for joining us in what's sure to be another successful Campaign!

Dave Gustafson Director NIATx