Technical Assistance Report

The New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) in collaboration with the Alcoholism & Substance Abuse Providers of New York, Inc. (ASAP) has conducted an information technology (IT) survey of chemical dependency service providers in New York State. The purpose of the survey was to gather detailed information on automated systems being used across the spectrum of chemical dependency services, analyze results, and then prepare a long-range plan based on both those findings and results.

ASAP and OASAS have a unique opportunity to influence the future success of IT acquisition and deployment. There needs to be a collaborative statewide strategy between and among the major stakeholders in the chemical dependency community, through:

• OASAS
   
• ASAP
   
• Local government
   
• Small, medium, and large size providers

The vision is a statewide chemical dependency information technology infrastructure that will benefit from the combination of the multiple sources of funding for IT reported in the survey. This concurrence of disparate expenditures should form the basis of viewing the disparate parts as ?enterprise architecture? or single-business for IT purposes. An enterprise architecture is defined as an organizational blueprint that defines ? in logical business terms and in technology terms ? how the chemical dependency IT system operates today, intends to operate in the future, and intends to invest in technology to transition to that future state.

This report is the first step toward documenting a ?gap analysis? in that process. Certainly OASAS has an important interest in the development and implementation of such an enterprise architecture strategy, since its multi-provider planning and statewide planning missions depend upon the quality, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of data reporting by the counties. This, in turn, has a direct relationship to the same attributes of their localized IT systems. ASAP has an interest in such an undertaking as well.

It is fully expected that the transformed chemical dependency system will eventually use information technology comprehensively to identify shared clients, track outcomes, and facilitate collaborative planning across the full spectrum of all modality service systems. Its successful implementation will greatly facilitate local planning at both the provider and local government levels, including the implementation of outcome measures and productivity assessment. The state planning responsibility will be greatly enhanced by becoming a key stakeholder in the process.

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