There and back again: Continuing efforts via regional partnership to promote workforce awareness of scientific advancements in addiction care [commentary].

A quarter century ago, research-to-practice gaps in addiction care gained national attention and prompted formation of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) and formalization of the Addiction Technology Transfer Centers (ATTCs). Soon after, the RE-AIM explanatory framework was developed to enable examination of the public health impact of healthcare innovations—with its domain of adoption corresponding most directly to the CTN’s mission of transferring research results of its trials to the addiction workforce. A node-level CTN-ATTC collaboration, the Western States CTN Node Training and Dissemination Workgroup, seeks to contribute to this national mission. Our workgroup—currently comprising leadership of the Western States CTN Node, Northwest ATTC, Pacific Southwest ATTC, and CTN Dissemination Library—promotes workforce adoption of scientific advancements in addiction care via two long-running universal technical assistance activities: a semi-annual webinar series, and a monthly column in the ATTC Messenger newsletter.

In this commentary, we provide historical context for the salience of bridging research-to-practice gaps, and then describe the origin of this workgroup, detail its pair of long-running universal technical assistance activities intended to increase adoption of healthcare advancements among addiction workforce members, and offer metrics concerning the audiences attracted over a recent five-year period. In celebration of the CTN’s 25th anniversary, we also reflect on the value of this multi-institutional partnership for the Western States CTN Node and propose a dissemination agenda to prompt future efforts whereby the CTN mission may be more fully and effectively achieved.