NIATx-TI versus typical product training on e-health technology implementation: a clustered randomized controlled trial study protocol

BACKGROUND: Substance use disorders (SUDs) lead to tens-of-thousands of overdose deaths and other forms of preventable deaths in the USA each year. This results in over $500 billion per year in societal and economic costs as well as a considerable amount of grief for loved ones of affected individuals. Despite these health and societal consequences, only a small percentage of people seek treatment for SUDs, and the majority of those that seek help fail to achieve long-term sobriety. E-health applications in healthcare have proven to be effective at sustaining treatment and reaching patients traditional treatment pathways would have missed. However, e-health adoption and sustainment rates in healthcare are poor, especially in the SUD treatment sector. Implementation engineering can address this gap in the e-health field by augmenting existing implementation models, which explain organizational and individual e-health behaviors retrospectively, with prospective resources that can guide implementation. METHODS: This cluster randomized control trial is designed to test two implementation strategies at adopting an evidence-based mobile e-health technology for SUD treatment. The proposed e-health implementation model is the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment–Technology Implementation (NIATx-TI) Framework. This project, based in Iowa, will compare a control condition (using a typical software product training approach that includes in-person staff training followed by access to on-line support) to software implementation utilizing NIATx-TI, which includes change management training, followed by coaching on how to implement and use the mobile application. While e-health spans many modalities and health disciplines, this project will focus on implementing the Addiction Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (A-CHESS), an evidence-based SUD treatment recovery app framework. This trial will be conducted in Iowa at 46 organizational sites within 12 SUD treatment agencies. The control arm consists of 23 individual treatment sites based at five organizations, and the intervention arm consists of 23 individual SUD treatment sites based at seven organizations DISCUSSION: This study addresses an issue of substantial public health significance: enhancing the uptake of the growing inventory of patient-centered evidence-based addiction treatment e-health technologies. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03954184. Posted 17 May 2019