ACTION Campaign in California: Spreading Process Improvement Statewide

Beth A. Rutkowski is Associate Director of Training and Epidemiologist for UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs/Pacific Southwest Addiction Technology Transfer Center. In her role, she manages multiple training projects across the state of California, providing training and technical assistance to spread the use of evidence-based practices in substance abuse treatment settings.

The favorite part of her job?

“Working with providers to improve the quality of treatment they provide to those in need,” says Rutkowski. “It’s so rewarding to help an agency make the transformation from being afraid of data to seeing how a small change can have a huge impact on client outcomes and revenue.”

The NIATx model of process improvement has been a key component of Rutkowski’s work with providers. In her work with the Los Angeles County Process Improvement Pilot Project, launched in 2006, Rutkowski is part of a team helping L.A. County providers improve retention in both outpatient and inpatient settings.

The L.A. County pilot’s success has created wide interest in the NIATx model and the ACTION Campaign across the state, Rutkowski reports.

“The timing of the Campaign was just right for California,” Rutkowski adds. “The free resources became available in Fall 2007, when the California Addiction Training and Education Series (CATES) established increasing access and retention as a priority training area, but shrinking budgets left few resources available for training.”

CATES offers a series of three daylong trainings that provide an orientation to the NIATx model of process improvement. “The ACTION Web site and the ACTION Kits are great supplements to the training because they give the participants tools that they can take back to their agencies and test right away,” says Beth.

The Countywide Alcohol and Drug Program Administrators’ Association of California (CADPAAC) has also passed a motion that every county in California will implement process improvement to improve access and retention.

Following L.A. County’s lead, Sonoma County is the first California county to form an ACTION Campaign Learning Collaborative. Sonoma County has built the Learning Collaborative into its established monthly providers’ meeting.

“We’ve set a goal to establish five additional multi-county ACTION Campaign Learning Collaboratives,” explains Rutkowski. “The Sonoma providers will have valuable lessons to share with the emerging collaboratives.”

At the first meeting of the collaborative in early August, ACTION Campaign Director Kim Johnson gave the providers an overview of process improvement and collecting baseline data. “Most of the Sonoma County providers involved in the collaborative have completed a walk-through and are now at the point of deciding which data to collect.”

Rutkowski describes the Sonoma County providers as very engaged. “They’re interested in learning about process improvement and eager to start making changes.”