ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF PROFESSIONAL STAFF SUBSTANCE ABUSE AT THE CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION: PROJECT OUTLINE
I. Extent and Character of the Substance Abuse Problem at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation
A. The toll exacted by chemical substance abuse on the American society and on individuals within the society in both social and economic contexts is both appalling and enormous.
B. Governments in the United States commit an enormous amount of public resources ù financial, human, and physical ù to fighting the country's substance abuse problem.
C. In spite of all of these efforts, and in the face of claims of great success by the Drug Enforcement Agency, however, the substance abuse problem appears to be intractable in the greater society.
D. Health professionals, although they daily witness the manifestations of chemical substance abuse in patients, are not immune to such behavior.
E. Substance abuse among health professionals has been found to be five times that of the general population, although health professionals, as a group, are not in the higher levels of user groups.
F. Some researchers attribute the high incidence of substance abuse among health professionals to the stressful character of the responsibilities of the health professions.
G. Thus, effective support and intervention programs for health professionals are required.
H. Almost one-half of the professional staff at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation report having experiences with one or more impaired coworkers over a 12-month period.
I. Impaired health professionals are threats to patients, health care institutions, the health care system, their professions, and to themselves.
J. Substance abuse, more often than not, leads directly to the development of impaired performance among health professionals.
II. Alternative Solutions to the Problem
A. Several states have established structured programs to deal with the problem of he...