The primitive state of quality measures in addiction treatment and their application.

Abstract

Developing quality measures in addiction treatment and implementing them is easy. Developing ones that are valid, interpretable, that motivate real improvements in quality and do not have adverse unintended consequences is very difficult. One serious, but mostly unacknowledged, threat to the validity of quality measures is poor estimates of the true prevalence of substance use disorder in a target population, leading to errors in estimates of treatment coverage.