Facilitator model may improve detection, intervention in primary care. (adapted from the Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 15:106-116, 1995)

A newly developed program that makes use of specially rained health facilitators may help physicians learn how to identify and intervene with substance abusers and patients at high risk for substance abuse in their medical practices, according to an article in The Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions.

According to authors Brian Rush, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Addiction Research Foundation in London, Ontario, he health facilitator model was first developed in Oxford, England, to help doctors manage patients at risk for cardiovasular illness. The key, they say, is that the health facilitator an step in and help correct the "lag between the current state of knowledge and technology in the …