This Phase I project will assess the feasibility of a web-based client-server system (""""""""CliniMetrica(TM)"""""""") for the assessment and diagnosis of alcohol and other substance use, abuse, and dependence. The system will be implemented using a Java client and a web data base server. Sections 11 """"""""Use of Alcohol"""""""" and 12 """"""""Use of Psychoactive Substances other than Alcohol"""""""" from the World Health Organization (WHO) Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN version 2. l) will be used as the basis for semi-structured standardized clinical assessment of alcohol and other drug use, abuse, and dependence. Implementation of an alcohol and drug assessment instrument as a web client-server system has a number of advantages. In this form deployment of the instrument is easier, since no additional networking software is needed, and use of Java makes the client application largely platform independent,,~so that users who have Macintosh or Unix computers will be able to use the instrument just as easily as with Windows. As an intranet application at a clinical or research site, centralized management of subject data is more secure, reliable and efficient. Furthermore, updating the content of the instrument is simpler, supporting its evolution and ongoing development. This approach in Phase I provides a natural foundation for the Phase II objectives of rapid modification and updating of the instrument for efficient routine clinical use, data warehouse and data mining functions, support for efficient longitudinal repeated assessment, and integration of advanced diagnostic logic functions. As the number of users increases, easy management will be increasingly important for research and commercial reasons, and a web client-server architecture will facilitate this later stage of development. The proposed research into effective web computerization of routine clinical assessment of alcohol and drug abuse and dependence is an innovation which has further potential to facilitate many additional technological innovations in alcohol, drug, and mental health research and services by fostering efficient standardization of assessment and thus helping create clinical data bases. Such data bases in turn would provide a basis for further research and technical developments, for example in scientific management and optimization of assessment and decision-making.
Commercial potential is present in all areas related to standardized assessment and ascertainment of alcohol and drug abuse and dependence, including epidemiology and services research, training, education, and managed care.
