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AMNET: An Addiction Medicine Network to Address the United States Opioid Crisis

Establish a New Practice-Based Research Network and Electronic Patient Registry Named Addition Medicine Network (AMNet)
Agency
 
  • National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Start Date
 
  • 4/15/2019
OS-PCORTF Strategic Plan Alignment
  • Primary: Goal 1: Data Capacity for National Health Priorities

 

STATUS: Completed Project

BACKGROUND

Approximately one-quarter of the over 2 million Americans with opioid use disorder (OUD) receive treatment. Three FDA-approved medications for treatment of OUD – buprenorphine, methadone, and extended-release naltrexone – are provided in many office-based and community medical practices throughout the US. Office-based practices that provide buprenorphine and naltrexone play a key role in the treatment response to the epidemic because they have the capacity to treat many more patients than can be accommodated in the limited number of Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs), including rural and other underserved communities. However, little is known about outcomes for the patients treated with buprenorphine and naltrexone in office-based practices. These practices typically do not collect standardized data on patients’ characteristics, treatments, and outcomes, and have not been harnessed to conduct patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). By connecting these settings to a practice-based research network, this project aimed to enhance addiction-related data collection and capacity to conduct PCOR focused on treatment of OUD.

PURPOSE

This project aimed to create a practice-based research network that would be able to provide real-time data on patient characteristics, care delivery, and recovery service utilization that can be used to improve patient outcomes through performance improvement efforts by:

  • Establishing the Addiction Medicine Practice-based Network (AMNet).
  • Adapting the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) clinical data registry (PsychPRO) to support data collected for AMNet.
  • Performing feasibility and validity testing of AMNet measures and OUD common data elements.
  • Expanding addiction medicine research capacity and outreach through AMNet participant training and related dissemination activities.

KEY POINTS

Providing more relevant, comprehensive data: Clinical data registry
AMNet collects and aggregates standardized clinical data from participating addiction medicine practitioners and integrates that data into a clinical data registry adapted from PsychPRO. Data include patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), medication for OUD treatment and recovery service utilization, OUD patient outcomes, and quality measures.

Addressing national priorities for health: Timely data on addiction treatment and recovery
AMNet provides more comprehensive data for clinical and health services research related to addiction. It improves clinicians, researchers, and other stakeholders access to real-time clinical and patient-reported OUD data to improve surveillance and clinical decision-making among treatment providers.

PUBLICATIONS

AMNet Access. Providers interested in joining AMNet to access the registry can complete a five-minute survey to determine their eligibility.

Addiction Medicine Practice-Based Research Network (AMNet): Assessment Tools and Quality Measures. This publication summarizes the results of an environmental scan and efforts to identify, review, and select 12 PROMs and three quality measures related to OUD and substance use disorder for inclusion in AMNet.

Addiction Medicine Practice-Based Research Network (AMNet): Building Partnerships. This publication describes the project’s collaborative efforts with the American Psychiatric Association, American Society of Addiction Medicine, Friends Research Institute, and NIH/NIDA to create AMNet.