Collaborative Initiatives
Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT)
The Division on Substance Use Disorders recently completed a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as a national trial site to reconfigure the addiction training curriculum for the entire student population at the medical and dental schools of Columbia University. Under this grant, fellows and faculty were actively involved in teaching lectures, small group cases, and leading doctoring courses for students. SBIRT has become an influential evidence-based approach for Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment. SBIRT is designed to screen for problematic substance use and addiction, provide care through brief interventions for problematic users (who fall short of an addiction diagnosis), and link patients with moderate-severe substance use disorders to specialized addiction treatment. The training materials for this initiative can be found here:
Provider’s Clinical Support System (PCSS)
The Division on Substance Use Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Irving Medical Center houses two programs funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): The Providers Clinical Support System (PCSS) and the Opioid Response Network (ORN). Frances Levin, MD is the medical director of both the PCSS and the ORN, and Adam Bisaga, MD leads the mentoring program as part of the PCSS.
The Provider’s Clinical Support System (PCSS) is a national training and mentoring project developed in response to the opioid epidemic. A consortium of major stakeholders and constituency groups with interests in safe and effective use of opioid medications offers extensive expertise in the treatment of substance use disorders and specifically, opioid use disorder treatment, as well as the interface of pain and opioid misuse. In collaboration with the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, Columbia University’s Division on Substance Use Disorders is actively involved in the training, dissemination, and implementation mission for physicians. All programming is free with CME programs available for medical providers of a variety of specialties, as well as other interdisciplinary health professionals. Columbia serves as a site for mentoring, educational activities, clinical consultations, and implementation technical assistance for community physicians and other clinical providers.
For more information, please visit: pcssnow.org.
Translational Research Training in Addictions for Racial/Ethnic Minorities at the City College of New York, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Rutgers University (TRACC-RU)
TRACC-RU is a NIDA-funded R25 training grant (2013-2025) designed to increase the number of interdisciplinary scientists capable to serve as Principal Investigators (PIs) on extramurally funded studies in substance use disorder research from underrepresented racial/ethnic minority (URM) groups. TRACC-RU is centered upon a mentorship relationship with one (and sometimes more) of the program faculty, providing scholars with interdisciplinary mentors focused on foundational issues along the translational spectrum from basic science to implementation research. TRACC scholars are earlier in their education (BS/MD, MA/MPH, pre-docs) and are exposed at a crucial time in their career development to the intersecting challenges of conceptualizing and conducting translational addiction research. The Division on Substance Use Disorders provides key oversight of TRACC in collaboration with the PIs (D. Hien at Rutgers and L. Ruglass at CUNY) and supplies many of the faculty mentors to whom scholars are assigned for 2-3 years.
For more information, please visit: https://tracc.ccny.cuny.edu/