7/24/17
by News Department on 07/24/17Addiction help...
Auditors said last week the state government isn’t doing enough to measure the effectiveness of its addiction treatment programs that can be helpful in the fight against the epidemic of heroin and prescription drug overdoses.
The audit launched last year by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale produced recommendations that three state agencies; the departments of Human Services, Corrections, and Drug and Alcohol Programs do more to assess whether their addiction treatment programs are successful in curing people.
It also warns that more money is needed to fund the effort. The audit noted that the agencies have different ways of defining a program’s effectiveness.
It also said that the success of addiction treatment is greatly influenced by someone’s desire to be treated and that tracking the effect of treatment on people with an addiction is very difficult.
The agencies, all under Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, largely agreed with the findings and said they were working toward establishing the evaluation processes recommended in the audit.
