April 29, 2025
April 29 1:30 – 3:00 PM ET
Implementation of Digital Interventions for Substance Use: State of the Science and Directions for Research
Workshop and Moderated Panel discussion with Implementation Science Scholars:
Lisa Saldana, PhD
Beth McGinty, PhD
Shari Rogal, MD
Caitlin Reardon, MPH
This 90-minute workshop will provide participants with an overview of the state of the science of implementation of digital health interventions for substance use. Following a presentation of a recent scoping review, Drs. Campbell and Lord will moderate a panel discussion with members of the CTBH D&I Core Scientific Advisory Board, and other experts in implementation science, to discuss findings and identify opportunities to advance implementation research in the space of digital Health interventions for substance use.
Presenter: Deepika Rao, PhD, MS, BPharm
About the Presenter: Dr. Rao received her PhD in Health Services Research in Pharmacy (2022) from UW-Madison. She also holds a Master of Science in Pharmacy Administration (2018) from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Pharmacy (2016) from University of Mumbai, India. Currently a postdoctoral fellow in the NIDA-supported T32 Science of Co-Occurring Disorders program at the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health (CTBH) at Dartmouth College, Dr. Rao’s research is focused on the development and implementation of digital health interventions in the prevention and treatment of substance use and mental health disorders, especially in pharmacy settings. She is particularly interested in studying the application of mixed methods and dissemination and implementation sciences in the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders.
Panelists: Beth McGinty, PhD, MS; Caitlin Reardon, MPH; Shari Rogal, MD, MPH; Lisa Saldana, PhD
About the Panelists: Dr. Beth McGinty is Livingston Farrand Professor of Population Health Sciences at Cornell Weill Medical Sciences. She conducts research focused on how health policies affect populations with complex health and social needs, including people experiencing mental illness, substance use disorder, chronic pain, and others. Her work is characterized by integrating approaches from the fields of public policy, health economics, and implementation science to understand how policies affect population health.
Caitlin Reardon studied Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She is a qualitative methodologist and implementation science researcher. Ms. Reardon is a developer of both the updated CFIR and the CFIR Outcomes Addendum and a member of the CFIR Leadership Team, which is responsible for advancing CFIR scholarship. Ms. Reardon was trained and mentored by Laura Damschroder, the lead developer of the original CFIR, and has over 10 years of experience using the framework to plan and evaluate the implementation of diverse evidence-informed practices within and outside of healthcare settings. She has trained over 100 investigators and analysts in the US and abroad on using the CFIR.
Dr. Shari Rogal is a gastroenterologist and transplant hepatologist, Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh, Director of the IMPACT Core of Pitt’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and co-Director of the Dissemination and Implementation Science Core of the VA Pittsburgh Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion. She is a member of the CFIR Leadership Team (CLT) and MPI of the VA’s CFIR Hub. Her research and operations work focuses on using data to identify implementation strategies to address barriers to high quality health care. Her work crosses several areas, including cancer screening, HIV prevention and care, liver care, substance use treatment, and pain management.
Dr. Lisa Saldana is the Associate Director and Senior Research Scientist at Chestnut Health Systems Lighthouse Institute and Director for the Center for Implementation Science at Lighthouse Institute. Her research focuses on advancing the use of evidence-based practice in public serving systems. Lisa led a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Oregon Social Learning Center to develop the Stages of Implementation Completion® (SIC) and Cost of Implementing New Strategies (COINS) tools that have been widely adopted to measure, track, and facilitate implementation process, milestones, and resource use for healthcare programs worldwide.
Moderators: Aimee Campbell, PhD, MSW; Sarah Lord, PhD
About the Moderators: Dr. Aimee Campbell’s research focuses on the development and testing of individual and program level interventions for substance use disorders, co-occurring mental health disorders, and HIV prevention and treatment, including the leveraging of technology-based platforms, with the objective of increasing adoption and implementation of evidence-based treatments. Dr. Campbell co-led, with Dr. Edward Nunes, one of the largest multi-site randomized controlled trials of a technology based intervention for substance use disorders, resulting in the first FDA clearance of a digital therapeutic. Her current research includes NIDA-funded projects to test an adapted technology-based intervention with American Indian/Alaska Native addiction treatment seekers and to develop and test an implementation intervention to culturally center the delivery of medications for opioid use disorder in partnership with four Tribal communities and a national collaborative board. Since 2017, Dr. Campbell has provided implementation facilitation as part of the SAMHSA-funded Providers’ Clinical Support System (PCSS) and more recently for the Opioid Response Network. She also serves as an Associate Director of Columbia University’s CHOSEN Center (Center for Healing Opioid and Other Substance Use Disorders). Dr. Campbell received her PhD in 2009 from Columbia University School of Social Work.
Dr. Sarah Lord is founding Director of the Dissemination & Implementation Core at CTBH and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Biomedical Data Sciences at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She is a co-director of the Dartmouth Center for Implementation Science and is on the Steering Committee and faculty for the newly launched online Master of Science in Implementation Science at Geisel School of Medicine. Dr. Lord is a co-investigator in the Northeast Node of the NIDA-supported Clinical Trials Network. Dr. Lord’s work focuses on use of digital technologies for delivery of evidence-based substance use and mental health care. Her research has included development, evaluation and implementation of digital therapeutic approaches for youth and adult populations, evaluation of facilitators and barriers to implementation and sustainability of digital interventions in systems of care, use of social media for delivery of digital health interventions, and integration of machine learning and implementation science to optimize impact of clinical decision supports in electronic health records to promote population health.