What specific elements of organization, management, financing and payment make a difference in effective drug abuse service delivery in a managed care environment? And, in particular, how can incentives within these four areas be used to encourage or support the provision of quality drug abuse treatment services?

Brandeis and Harvard each bring a unique set of substantive skills that strengthen the collective expertise. Considered together, they constitute the structure required to conduct coordinated and comprehensive research. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Brandeis/Harvard Center on Managed Care and Drug Abuse Treatment is aimed at

improving access to and quality of substance abuse treatment in managed care.

The objective is to investigate how organizational management, financing and payment within managed care can be improved to benefit substance abusers seeking treatment.

The Brandeis/Harvard Center on Managed Care and Drug Abuse Treatment continues a collaboration between the Institute for Behavioral Health at Brandeis University's Schneider Institutes for Health Policy and Harvard Medical School's Department of Health Care Policy that began in 1995. With an expanded group of multidisciplinary researchers and educators, a strengthened Center core today has extensive clinical, statistical and methodological expertise available and dissemination as a core function, and a structure that maximizes synergy across research projects and between core committees and research projects.

By sharing knowledge and resources across institutions, we create a whole greater than its parts and our ability to conduct high-quality health services is enhanced.