Clinical trials

This proposal responds to NIMH Objective 4.2.c to develop "decision-support tools and technologies that increase the effectiveness and continuous improvement of mental health interventions" by leveraging the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) policy opportunity. First, a web-based platform to host (a) a decision-support tool and (b) automated facilitation for group decisions with the tool will be developed with state partners' feedback. Next, decision makers leading their states' FFPSA quality improvement efforts will be engaged to pilot a decision-support intervention comprised of the tool and live or automated facilitation, and to evaluate the implementation quality of evidence-based programs adopted with the decision-support intervention.

This study will explore how to expand the Just Care for Families (JCFF) program beyond its current sites in Oregon, while addressing two main challenges: the developer team cannot provide ongoing support to every new program, and rural counties face limits on caseloads and reimbursement because of long travel distances. To overcome these barriers, the trial will test two strategies-using a JCFF mobile app to improve outcomes and efficiency, and relying on trained Experts (instead of the developer team) to guide new counties. With five active counties and four new ones, researchers will study whether parents receiving JCFF with digital support show reduced opioid and stimulant use, better child welfare outcomes like reunification, and more efficient treatment. This study will also compare how well new counties implement JCFF compared to existing ones, and use modeling to see if digital tools help programs sustain themselves by balancing caseloads and reimbursement. This study is supported by and included in the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (https://heal.nih.gov/).

Oregon's decision makers (e.g., community service providers, public health, justice, advocacy groups, payers) are calling for comprehensive, current, and trusted data to inform how they allocate resources to improve substance use services and mitigate the growing opioid and methamphetamine epidemics in their state. Consistent with the HEAL Data2Action call for Innovation projects that drive action with data in real-world settings, this study will refine and test the impact of a novel implementation strategy to engage cross- sector decision makers and make data that they identify as relevant to their decisions available to them in easy- to-use products. The proposed study aims to not only address critical knowledge gaps regarding how and when data can inform impactful, transparent decision-making, but to provide decision makers with the data that they need to achieve community-wide substance use prevention and treatment goals, including the increased delivery of high-quality, evidence-informed, services and the prevention of overdoses.