Applying the Chronic Care Model to Addiction Medicine in the United States

This essay applies the Chronic Care Model, commonly applied to managing diabetes as a chronic disease, to substance use disorder through the lens of an inpatient addiction medicine consult team. The four components of the Chronic Care Model (increasing provider expertise, educating and supporting patients, the use of registry-based information, and the transition to team based care) serve as a framework to explore how to create a replicable model for addiction medicine treatment in inpatient settings and through integration with non-inpatient care. An academic medical center addiction medicine consult service is used to illustrate the administrative and operational applications of the Chronic Care Model, with additional illustration of the challenges present in creating and sustaining an addiction medicine service line. This is of public health importance with the growing population of United States adults with chronic substance use disorders.