For almost 10 years, Gary Mendell’s son Brian battled the disease of addiction and its cycle of shame, isolation, and failure. He enrolled in eight different treatment facilities over the ten years and Gary spent countless hours navigating through misinformation, stigma, and a complex system to help Brian. As a father, Gary saw that the system was overwhelming to navigate and that it was difficult to find evidence-based treatment.

In 2011, Brian lost his battle, and Gary began his work to spare other families the tragedy his had suffered. He founded Shatterproof.

Shatterproof is a non-profit organization dedicated to changing the country’s consciousness about substance use and addiction.  It is building a national movement to treat addiction like the chronic disease it is and offering evidence-based resources for prevention, treatment and recovery. This movement is fostering tolerance and compassion, and dismantling the discrimination and judgment associated with this devastating disease.

Part of this effort is helping those in need, individuals and families, to navigate a maze of treatment systems that for many is difficult, confusing and impossible for them to make work.

That is why ATLAS® was created, an Addiction Treatment Locator, Assessment, and Standards Platform,  www.TreatmentATLAS.org, that evaluates addiction treatment facilities’ use of evidence-based best practices, includes an assessment to understand the appropriate level of care, and offers an easy-to-use dashboard to allow those in need and their loved ones to search for and compare facilities using criteria such as location, services offered, and insurance accepted so they can find the best treatment for their unique needs.

ATLAS also gathers and displays anonymous feedback from patients on their experiences at facilities. Just as we use consumer reviews to select goods and services in other areas of healthcare, this feedback helps to inform others’ care decisions. Anyone who has received treatment from a facility in Oklahoma is encouraged to visit www.TreatmentATLAS.org to search for the facility and leave a patient review.

“During a time when our nation’s addiction crisis is tragically at an all-time high and access to quality treatment is often hard to find, ATLAS is a critical new resource. When my son Brian needed addiction treatment, my family agonized trying to find him the right care. It was impossible to know who to trust,” says Shatterproof Founder and CEO, Gary Mendell. “ATLAS is a sea change in the addiction world. It will give those in need and their families the transparent and trustworthy information my family never had and will help put more people on the path to recovery.”

Shatterproof and their team working on ATLAS are working with the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to ensure that Oklahoma certified treatment providers are included in the online service directory, to promote treatment currently available in the state, and to expand opportunities for all Oklahomans to find the right services. 

ATLAS is fully available in English and Spanish and has several unique features including:

• Display of facilities’ use of best practices based on the Shatterproof National Principles of Care, evidence-based standards derived from the Surgeon General’s Report on Addiction, using data gathered through a combination of validated sources;
• Feedback from other patients once a minimum threshold of 20 responses for the facility is met, that is updated every 24 hours;
• An expert-agreed upon Addiction Treatment Needs Assessment, created in collaboration with the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and OpenBeds, to help guide a treatment search based on the individual’s needs and severity;
• Ability to search and filter using criteria such as location, services offered and insurance accepted, as well as compare the facilities.

The ATLAS team strives to continuously improve. ATLAS has had several changes over the past year to make this resource more patient-centered and evidence-based, including:

• Link added to state-specific websites as an additional resource;
• Simplified display of insurance information;
• Updated educational content;
• Continuation of the Continuous Quality Improvement Learning Series – a free technical assistance series for ATLAS providers;
• Launch of the cross-functional National Addiction Treatment Quality Committee (NATQC) to advise on future ATLAS changes.

ATLAS was created by Shatterproof, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to reversing the addiction crisis in America. ATLAS is currently available in Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and West Virginia, reaching 28% of the U.S. population. It will be coming to California in 2023, which will bring the population reach to more than 40%.