The CTN Research Utilization Committee: Putting dissemination research into practice.

From the CTN’s inception in 1999, its members have been committed to helping clinicians implement interventions that are tested and found effective by CTN research. The CTN Research Utilization Committee (RUC) is charged with the task of helping community treatment programs within the CTN adopt CTN tested interventions. The committee began its work with a review of dissemination research which led to the development of an annotated bibliography, an electronic CTN Dissemination Library, and a published literature review as products. A fundamental principle ascertained from the RUC’s review of dissemination/implementation research is the need to provide ongoing technical assistance to a treatment program after staff members become aware of an intervention and are motivated to try to adopt it as an innovation.

RUC Workgroups have been constituted to provide technical assistance for the adoption of buprenorphine treatment, motivational interviewing, and contingency management. Activities of the Motivational Interviewing Workgroup in particular are described in this presentation to demonstrate how dissemination research findings can be put into practice. The focus on clinical supervision as the vehicle to disseminate this intervention has been particularly attractive to participating treatment programs. Interest in dissemination research has grown within the CTN and the CTN could become a platform for dissemination research investigators.