In The History and Function of the Target Cities Management Information Systems, you?ll travel to six major cities in the ?Target Cities? demonstration project sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration?s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). You?ll see how treatment centers are developing automated management information systems that have been proven to more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of patients requiring addiction recovery and treatment in large metropolitan areas. Your understanding of what it takes to develop, run, and maintain automated management information systems will increase as you read these firsthand accounts of specialists who have taken their own systems through the stages of initial development, to ongoing maintenance, and to eventual evolution.The History and Function of the Target Cities Management Information Systems provides an excellent forum of discovery in which you have everything you need to fully compare and contrast how various local conditions have impacted the growth of these cities?information systems and how individual problems can be solved. Several real-world views of these and many other specific topics in these metropolitan areas of the country are at your fingertips:

• how central intake sites provide rapid assessment, referral, and care management in Cleveland, Ohio
• facilitating automated client assessment, referral, and service tracking in Portland, Oregon
• how central intake units (CIUs) and a computerized management information system (MIS) reduce barriers to treatment entry, increase treatment retention, and support continued posttreatment recovery in Dallas, Texas
• the St. Louis, Missouri, information system that was conceptualized and implemented statewide
• the patient tracking system (PTS) in New Orleans, Louisiana
• lessons learned in Detroit, Michigan, by staff using a management information system with a terminal-host model and character-based user interfaceThis is the only known published description of automated systems being developed for the same purpose by different teams. Everyone, especially hospital administrators, educators, and behavioral health and computer professionals interested in the development of automated medical records systems, will definitely want to access the valuable information garnered from six important cities in The History and Function of the Target Cities Management Information Systems. By comparing and contrasting the true-to-life accounts of these different cases, you?ll gain a richer, deeper understanding of this type of software and system development process. You?ll also acquire the insight necessary to spearhead the construction and modification of an effective, efficient assessment and case management system in your own city.