How can care be coordinated for people with substance use disorder? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Substance use, mental health problems, and physical ailments are currently treated separately, but need to be integrated. That’s according to Eric Strain, a substance use disorder expert at Johns Hopkins.

Strain: You’ve got these complicated patients and we’ve got patients with substance abuse disorders and significant medical problems and we’ve got people with mental health problems and substance abuse problems and we’ve got all those combinations. We need to get away from thinking that each of those three areas is separate and needs to be defended by their own little fiefdoms.  :23

Electronic medical records can help.

Strain: Things like integrated health records make a lot of sense to better coordinate care. We also need to look at the funding streams for mental health, substance abuse and general medical care, and see better integration of those funding streams.  :16

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.