Health Federation of Philadelphia (HFP) is a HRSA-funded network, comprised of more than 60 member FQHC sites throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. Over the duration of this project, HFP will provide 20 of these sites with resources, intensive training and technical assistance to implement high-fidelity SBIRT services for an estimated 50,000 adult patients. HFP will also provide training on SBIRT to behavioral health staff at its other member FQHC sites to spread the adoption of SBIRT and improve behavioral health care for an estimated 300,000 patients in the region. This project will focus on adult patients of FQHCs and addresses acute needs related to alcohol and illicit drug use. In Philadelphia alone, the drug overdose rate is three times the national rate, resulting in 900 deaths in 2016, making this project aimed at creating a systematic and sustainable continuum of services to address problematic AOD use particularly timely.
Project goals include: #1) Enhance the ability of FQHCs in the Greater Philadelphia Region to identify and address the needs of patients with AOD/SUD. #2) Improve health outcomes related to AOD/SUD among patients receiving SBIRT. To reach these goals, the grantee will train SBIRT champions at each site and ensure that: a total of 50,000 patients -- 5,000 in Year 1, 10,000 in Year 2, 15,000 in Year 3, 20,000 in Year 4 are pre-screened for AOD; 15,000 -- 1,500 in Year 1, 3,000 in Year 2, 4,500 in Year 3 and 6,000 in Year 4 will be referred for full screening; 4,000 -- 400 in Year 1, 800 in Year 2, 1,200 in Year 3 and 1,600 in Year 4 receive intervention; and 500 - 50 in Year 1,100 in Year 2, 150 in Year 3, 200 in Year 4 are referred to SUD treatment. HFP will collect GPRA data on 700 unduplicated patients as a subset of the subset of the 4,000 unduplicated patients that receive post-screening SBIRT services. Further, HFP projects that 30% of those receiving SBIRT interventions will report decreased use of AOD and 25% will report improvement in mental health status.
The project implementation plan includes integration of evidence-based screening instruments and interventions and will leverage the best practices for SBIRT implementation that are well documented in the literature and through publicly available resources and tool kits. HFP will also enhance the technology and data infrastructure, as well as the workforce competencies, to ensure sustainability of SBIRT beyond the 5-year grant period.