H-STAR Project

 

H-STAR Project: HIV - Substance Treatment And Recovery Project

 

 

Project Directors: Jeff Watts, MD and Pamela Vergara-Rodriguez, The CORE Center, Cook County Bureau of Health Services.

Contact Information: Jeff Watts, MD
Telephone: (312) 572-4550
Fax: (312) 572-4597
Email: jwatts@corecenter.org

Target Population: HIV+ African-American and Hispanic Patients in Chicago EMA

Partners: Christie Scott, PhD and Lighthouse Institute

The H-STAR Project, will focus on enhancing our existing on-site substance abuse disorders (SUD) program through (1) centralized comprehensive case management (CCM), (2) new manualized behavioral therapy (Matrix IOP), including services for monolingual Spanish-speaking patients and, (3) psychiatric evaluation for all SUD patients as well as ongoing psychiatric medication management for patients with co-occurring disorders (COD-T). These enhanced interventions will occur in the context of existing HIV medical and multidisciplinary care at the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center. The coalescence of these enhanced interventions represents an evidence-based approach to the treatment of our target population of HIV+ African-American and Hispanic men and women with SUD. With an estimated 1470 HIV+ adult minority patients with SUD who receive HIV care at the CORE, we propose to treat an average of 75 patients per year of the intervention for 4.5 years (a total of 345 unduplicated patients, accounting for initial and wrap-up periods). Initial psychiatric evaluation will occur after 4 weeks, manualized behavioral therapy (Matrix IOP) will extend over 16 weeks, and case management (CCM) and psychiatric medication management (COD-T) will span 26 weeks. Measurable patient objectives will include drug usage and severity, risk behaviors, mental health status, patient satisfaction, general quality of life, and social factors (legal, housing, financial). Program outcomes will include projected enrollment numbers, types and numbers of projected treatments, frequency of service, and retention to care. Data collection, management, and performance measurement will be managed by our experienced consulting evaluation team (The Lighthouse Institute).

The H-STAR Project is the only site selected from the State of Illinois to provide treatment services with an average annual award of $450,000.

SAMHSA website news release link:

http://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/advisories/0809193153.aspx