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| photocredit: Wolters Kluwer |
Training in addiction medicine gives clinicians early intervention tools, prevents the escalation of addiction and prevents costly and lengthy treatment. The problem is that very little information exists on the treatment workforce. It seems that most health systems do not have enough providers trained in addiction medicine to reduce the public health consequences of this increasing societal problem. In 2014, the Boston-based Advocates for Human Potential, Inc., developed a so-called Provider Availability Index. It measures the gap between the need for and availability of trained healthcare providers, but similar efforts have not been done in Canadian setting. This paper briefly describes mathematical estimates of the number of skilled addiction care providers in British Columbia, Canada, and offers recommendations for steps that can be taken immediately to increase provider availability. The article was published ahead of print in the Journal of Addiction Medicine on May 13, 2016 and the suggested citation is:
McEachern, J., Ahamad, K., Nolan, S., Mead, A., Wood, E., & Klimas, J. (9000). A needs assessment of the number of comprehensive addiction care physicians required in a canadian setting. J Addict Med, Publish Ahead of Print. doi:10.1097/adm.0000000000000230