DASA-TA

What is the DASA Treatment Analyzer?

In 2002, the Washington State Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA) approached LGAN about developing a solution for the reporting needs of the publicly funded treatment community.  DASA already had a well-developed data collection system: what was lacking was a convenient, cost-effective way to measure organizational performance and a mechanism to disseminate that information to treatment admnistrators and providers. 

DASA is responsible for administering publicly-funded programs for the treatment of substance abuse across Washington State.  DASA-funded services are designed to maintain a cost-effective, quality continuum of care for rehabilitating individuals recovering from alcoholism and other drug addictions. 

What does the DASA-TA provide?   

Management reporting:  program managers at all levels of the publicly-funded treatment system need timely information on a range of performance measures.  The DASA-TA provides management reporting options that are easy to access and run with results that are easy to interpret. 

Topics

• Admissions, compared to benchmarks
• Caseloads
• Treatment completion
• Treatment retention
• Client characteristics
• Employment
• Arrests 

Ways to customize

• Geography: state, county or treatment agency
• Time period
• Funding source
• Client characteristics: age, gender, marital status, primary drug of abuse

Ad hoc query capability:  Ad hoc query functionalilty allows users to build queries using an intuitive, user-friendly interface.  Users can examine the distributions of any of the 150 variables in the system or gain a better understanding of relationships by cross-tabulating up to 5 variables simultaneously. 

Who is DASA-TA for? 

Customers authorize all users of LGAN software applications and can choose who and how many users they want to provide access to.  DASA has authorized access for over 600 users and they include:

• State and county-level program managers
• Contracted service providers
• University researchers 

How do customers gain access to LGAN applications like the DASA-TA?

LGAN develops, maintains and hosts applications like the DASA-TA and customers enter into subscription agreements for access to the service.  After that, all that is required to use the system is access to a web browser.  Software, hardware and data security are the responsibility of LGAN.  In contrast to traditional hardware and software investments, this business model, often referred to as Software as a Service (SaaS) minimizes the financial risk and allows organizations more time and resources to focus on their core mission. 

How many people use it?  How much use does it get? 

Customers want to know what they are getting from their investments.  LGAN developed usage summary reports to meet that need.  Since the implementation of DASA-TA, over 600 people across the state have registered to use the system.  Over the past year, over 1,600 reports and nearly 400 queries have been run per month.

Thursday, August 07, 2008, Administrator