Tips for Treatment Programs

Does his use of pot reduce his craving for alcohol (as he claims), or is it actually helping to trigger his drinking?

I’ve never had much success explaining to a patient in the first 30 days of recovery that when Bobby smokes dope, it’s medicine, but when Liz lights up, it’s drug abuse.

A former national insurance exec observed that when you work in healthcare management, most of your day is spent looking at columns of numbers.

Many clinicians work in busy programs with lots of staff and most of the time still feel like they’re alone, almost a solo practitioner, but with a lot less control over their activities

I’ve noticed that managers who had success in other industries have a tendency to view treatment as a form of manufacturing.

Clients who struggle to stay drug-free can resent the presence in group of others who openly use substances.

Some schedule periodic onsite visits that one wag compared to a pterodactyl circling overhead screaming at the ground before flying off again.

For instance, a business that isn’t meeting investor expectations might decide to launch an aggressive marketing campaign without a corresponding increase in staff.

Many years ago, when I was a young Executive Director, one of the hospital VPs wandered down to my office to inquire about the census. It (continued…)

My longstanding rule is to design your program to treat your population, not some idealized group of subjects who did well in a research setting with a significantly different structure.