The BIG Hospital SBIRT Initiative

A Learning Collaborative to Expand SBIRT into Hospitals and Other Medical Settings

Nursing and Social Work Consortium

Nurses constitute the largest component of the health care system and are consistently rated by the public as the most trusted health care professionals.

A consortium of nurse leaders from academe, health care, and employee assistance organizations has coalesced to advance substance-related knowledge and competency among the current and future nursing workforce. The vision of the consortium is to disseminate best practices related to preparing the future and current nursing workforce in caring for individuals affected by substance use.  Nurses with that related knowledge and competence will have critical roles in reducing the global burden of disease related to alcohol and other drugs.

The majority of the participating Colleges and Schools of Nursing are recipients of federal funds to develop nursing curricula related to substance-related screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT).  The common driving force for this consortium is to ensure that this set of clinical strategies known as SBIRT is part of day-to-day nursing practice.

Led by Deborah S. Finnell, the inaugural meeting took place on February 26, 2014 with over 40 nurse leaders and other stakeholder participating in a teleconference.  There was overwhelming support for continuing and expanding the network.  A Steering Committee was established to guide the group moving forward.  Shortly thereafter, a 2-day summit was planned for June 12 and 13, 2014.  Funding support from Peer Assistance Services, Inc. was provided to offset costs for participants.  Dean Patricia Davidson at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing provided the venue services that supported the event planning, marketing and communication. Twenty eight nurse leaders attended the summit. 
 
 
 
 
 
See the accompanying document, “Nursing Leaders: Addressing the Continuum of Substance Use” for additional information about the June 2014 summit.  There are links to vimeos of a presentation by Dr. Dan Hungerford.  His slides are also posted on this website.  Dr. Julie Stanik-Hutt also provided “lessons learned” from her experience in integrating content related to the care of older adults into nursing curricula.

Visit this site often as we intend to continue to add content related to upcoming conferences and scholarly contributions from nurses and about substance-related nursing practice.

Best regards!

Deborah S. Finnell, DNS, PMHNP-BC, CARN-AP, FAAN
Associate Professor and Director of the Masters Nursing Program
Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
Baltimore, Maryland, US