Health experts are implementing a screening tool from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to help doctors screen patients for addiction behaviors during every visit, the Associated Press reported May 5.

The program, NIDAMED, involves a step-by-step computerized guide that analyzes a patient's risk for addiction based on their answers to behavioral questions. The program then prompts doctors with instructions on the appropriate response.

NIDAMED is also designed to help physicians who are not trained in addiction medicine to differentiate between and treat patients who are experimenting with drugs and those who are addicted or dependent.

"There are all sorts of people who are using alcohol, drugs, who are continuing to work and do their jobs and slowly spiraling down, who are not the hard-core users," says family physician Brian Jack of the Boston University Medical School. "Those are people who are in the clinics every single day for all sorts of different things."

Roughly 2 million Americans receive help for addiction annually, NIDA says, whereas 23 million are in need of treatment. Half of all emergency-room visits involve alcohol or other drugs, but "we don't ask [about] it. It makes no sense whatsoever," said Gail D'Onofrio, head of emergency medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

New York City health officials said they plan to incorporate NIDAMED into the city's electronic medical records, which will give more than 1,000 health care providers access to the program.  The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also recently urged all of its members to ask patients about their alcohol and other drug use during visits.