Experience Starting an Addiction Medicine Practice-based Research Network

Abstract

Objectives: This paper outlines the experience developing Addiction Medicine Practice-Based Research Network (AMNet), which promotes the adoption of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and measurement-based care in outpatient addiction treatment practices and creates a platform for quality improvement and research.

Methods: From August 2019 to July 2023, the AMNet team selected patient-reported outcome measures for implementation in the American Psychiatric Association's clinical data registry (PsychPRO), recruited addiction medicine providers, and collected PROMs data.

Results: AMNet selected 12 PROMs for implementation in PsychPRO. Through July 2023, 1565 providers expressed interest, of whom 216 of the 929 eligible providers (23%) attended an onboarding call/webinar. Two hundred six providers (95%) from 54 practices returned Participation Agreements. Subsequently, 65 providers (32%) from 39 practices withdrew, resulting in 141 (68%) providers from 15 practices. From November 2020 to July 2023, 38 providers submitted PROMs data using 1 of 3 PsychPRO patient portals. Sixteen of the 53 providers (30%) who signed up for the initial portal collected data from 468 patients. As of July 2023, 83 of the 141 providers (59%) opted to submit PROMs data from their own portal or electronic health record.

Conclusions: Next steps will include continued recruitment of providers, addressing barriers to data transfer and integrating data from providers' portals into the registry to create a platform for future research.