Learning Objectives: Describe process and methods used to achieve collaboration among eight health plans in Massachusetts, along with legal and operational considerations when developing service agreements. Identify the rudiments of an evidence-based continuum of tobacco treatment interventions: office practice implementation tools, universal patient referral form; proactive telephone counseling or referral to community treatment, and patient status feedback reporting to providers and health plans. Describe methods to disseminate practice implementation materials in person to 6,000+ providers and office managers and to assess the effectiveness of the dissemination process.
Abstract: Audience: This workshop is intended for state tobacco control program managers, quitline directors, and strategists engaged in building systems-level cessation approaches in partnership with health plans.
Key Points: This workshop will demonstrate: methods used to form the health plan collaboration; features of the QuitWorks treatment system--a universal patient referral form, proactive telephone counseling, with feedback reports to providers and health plans; execution of contracts with eight health plans, and methods used to distribute QuitWorks in person to 12,000 providers. The workshop will highlight strategies used to reduce barriers for providers and the benefits of engaging all partners in the design, despite significant organizational and legal issues. Workshop facilitators will demonstrate the QuitWorks Office Practice implementation Kit, and discuss the rationale and challenge of face-to-face distribution of QuitWorks kits to 12,000 providers. Results will be shared on the number of providers and practices reached, patients enrolled and services provided, as well as future evaluation plans.
Educational Experience. A team representing the collaboration of health plans, the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program, the Massachusetts Resource Center, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School will present the workshop. The team will demonstrate methods used to build the QuitWorks program and will facilitate strategy discussion groups for participants to apply learning to their own situation.
Benefits: Using QuitWorks methods and services, the workshop will prepare participants to identify facilitators and barriers in their states or communities to collaboration among health plans; to design and implement effective strategies to promote widespread adoption of effective provider interventions and treatment services.
Back to QuitWorks: Public Health/Health Plan Collaboration in Massachusetts, Linking Providers and Patients to Telephone Counseling
Back to Cessation, Nicotine, and the Science of Addiction
Back to The 2002 National Conference on Tobacco or Health