American Society of Addiction Medicine Receives Top ASAE Honors for CONTINUUM - The ASAM Criteria Decision Engine™

The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has earned the 2016 ASAE Power of A (Association) Gold and Silver Awards for CONTINUUM™, clinical decision software that revolutionizes addiction treatment by standardizing patient assessment and creating an addiction patient registry.

ASAE honored CONTINUUM, which is the result of over two decades of work by ASAM, starting with the creation of medical necessity criteria and culminating with CONTINUUM's January 2016 release.

"Congratulations to ASAM for helping to make the world a better and more prepared healthful place," said Sharon J. Swan, FASAE, CAE, Chief Executive Office of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and chair of the Power of A Awards Judging Committee. "Their initiative exemplifies how associations are a positive force in our everyday lives - not just the profession or industry they represent, but to society at large."

CONTINUUM, which furthers ASAM's breakthrough work, is a web application that implements ASAM's widely adopted criteria and provides a framework for a patient registry. CONTINUUM's algorithm standardizes evaluation by guiding clinicians through a biopsychosocial patient assessment and calculating medical necessity. The assessment generates a report with validated clinical recommendations, which are incorporated into patient medical records and can be sent directly to payers, facilitating utilization review decisions. Recognizing that data captured during CONTINUUM's assessment could be used to track outcomes, ASAM partnered with FEi Systems, a leading health technology company, to develop a scalable, cloud-based application that integrates into electronic health records (EHRs) and will automatically aggregate assessment data into a patient registry.

“CONTINUUM is the new scientific standard for addiction treatment – for evidence-based patient assessment, treatment matching, utilization review and systemic needs assessment. The software ensures everyone seeking addiction care for themselves or their loved ones receives the same high standard of evaluation and placement,” said ASAM Member Dr. David Gastfriend. “For care, services access and payment reform – managing by data is no longer the future; it can be now, thanks to what ASAM has built in the CONTINUUM product line.”

Twenty years of NIH (NIDA, NIAAA), HHS (SAMHSA) and foreign government funded research validates CONTINUUM's clinical effectiveness. CONTINUUM is precise and it is the only ASAM-endorsed treatment matching process. It saves payers money by helping patients get healthy faster and reducing time providers and insurers spend debating medical necessity and authorizing care.

ASAE's Power of A Awards, the industry's highest honor, recognize the association community's valuable contributions on the local, national and global levels. The Power of A Awards reward outstanding accomplishments of associations and industry professionals for their efforts to enrich lives, create a competitive workforce, prepare society for the future, drive innovation and make a better world.