Substance abuse and mental health service administration
| Subject: | 🏥 Health Care |
| Type: | Evaluation Essay |
| Pages: | 2 |
| Word count: | 681 |
| Topics: | 💊 Substance Abuse |
essay ASAP?
The Department of U.S. Health and Human Service (HHS), is the overall body charged with the mandate of protecting and enhancing the health of the Americans. Within HHS, is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This agency leads the public health efforts towards reducing the influence of drug abuse and mental illness on the American societies((US) & Research, 2012). The aim of this paper is to explore the SAMHSA website, then later on, discuss how the Department of Health and Humans Service obtains its data and then finally investigate and explain how issues made about provisions of the law are adequately addressed.
SAMHSA has a very well designed website. It is indeed appealing to my eyes. At the top of the website, is the logo of the agency and then slightly below, is the where when exploring the website, I found the all information on SAMHSA just by clicking on the area of interest. For instance, from left to right, the website allows access to information on treatment, A-Z list of all topics related to substance abuse and mental illness, programs and campaigns, grants, data, about the agency itself and lastly publications; all organized in that order. In this case; data, outcomes and Quality is the part of this website that I was interested to know much about.
The agency has made data, outcomes and quality their priority. This aims at attaining an incorporated data approach and a national framework for quality development in behavioral healthcare. In so doing, the website gives a guideline to better the quality of services and results of communities, individuals and families. In addition to that, this aids SAMHSA and the nation at large to evaluate the effect of the transformations to US health care systems and pin point and deal with behavioral health inequalities(Abuse, 2013) I find nothing really surprising in this website but amazed by the systematic manner in which information is arranged. The various data links provides access to information that adequate and relevant.
The Health and Human Services department obtains its data from conducting surveys on diverse aspects of healthcare. This is done through the various agencies that are under its mandate. Just to highlight few examples of such agencies, one of them is the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) which is done by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) This is a survey conducted on individuals and families in trying to examine their employers and medical providers across the nation. It is one source of data that provides reliable information on cost and use of healthcare, accessibility of healthcare as well health insurance coverage((US) & Research, 2012).
National Hospice and Home care survey is another data system from which HHS obtains its data. The survey is done by the Centres for Disease Prevention and Control Agency (CDPC). It is a representative sample survey of U.S. home health and thus providing information on home health, their services and patients which is used by the department (Buck, 2011). Yet other important sources of data for HHS, are National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) that has been in place since 1957. NHIS provides a collection of data on topics related to health that is collected through personal household interviews. Research Data Assistance Center marks one very beneficial source of data for the department of HHS. This includes a number of complete data sets that are made available on the website of this research Centre
Particular statutes and legislations are made to look into the issues of drug abuse and other related issues. There are set federal laws with specific acts that adequately address specific issues related to SAMHSA(Abuse, 2013). Such laws include the Americans with Disabilities Act that proves obligations for uniform opportunities for the disabled, Affordable care Act. The Act makes health insurance more reasonable for families, individuals and middle class. People living with mental health challenges or substance use illnesses often have difficulties acquiring private health insurance. Now there are particular insurance protections to help(Abuse, 2010).
- Abuse, S. (2010). Mental Health Services Administration (2010) Results from the 2009 national survey on drug use and health: volume I. Summary of National Findings.
- Abuse, S. (2013). Mental Health Services Administration, Drug Abuse Warning Network, 2011: National Estimates of Drug-Related Emergency Department Visits. HHS Publication no.(SMA), 13, 4760.
- Buck, J. A. (2011). The looming expansion and transformation of public substance abuse treatment under the Affordable Care Act. Health Affairs, 30(8), 1402–1410.
- (US), N. C. for H. S., & Research, N. C. for H. S. (2012). Health, United States. US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Health Resources Administration, National Center for Health Statistics.
Offered for reference purposes only.