Dentistry United to Extinguish Tobacco

Study Summary

System level strategies for implementing tobacco use treatment guidelines exist but are insufficiently put into practice, particularly in dental care settings. Closing the gap between research and practice is stymied by the limited research on systems changes necessary to implement tobacco treatment in routine dental care. Drawing from a burgeoning dissemination science literature, the proposed study compares the cumulative benefit of the following three systems-level strategies: 1) staff training and clinical reminders, 2) provider feedback and 3) pay-for- performance (financial incentives), that have been widely endorsed by a 2001 Institute of Medicine Report, "Crossing the Quality Chasm" (IOM 2011) and the 2008 PHS Guidelines (Fiore 2007, Fiore 2008, IOM 2011). The investigators propose a 3-arm cluster randomized controlled trial that will analyze the implementation process and compare the cost and effectiveness of three implementation strategies: 1) Staff training and CBP in implementing PHS Guidelines; 2) CBP + provider performance feedback (PF) and 3) CBP + PF + Pay-for-performance (provider reimbursement for tobacco cessation treatment delivery). Guided by Organizational Change Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen 1991, Damschroder 2009, Greenhalgh 2004, Solberg 2007) the investigators will identify multi-level factors that facilitate or impede the implementation process in dental clinics. Our primary outcome is improvement in provider delivery of tobacco cessation treatment found through extensive meta-analysis (Fiore 2008) to be an essential determinant of patient cessation outcomes. Our secondary outcome will be post-intervention patient-reported quit rates. In addition to examining the comparative effectiveness of the three implementation strategies, the investigators will use a mixed methods approach to examine implementation processes (Aim 2) to assess the degree to which the interventions are integrated into practice as intended and to cla

Primary Outcome

The Patient Exit Interview (PEI) is a brief patient-reported measurement tool for the assessment of provider delivery of tobacco use treatment. Patients will be approached during their clinic visits by trained research study assistants, to determine smoking status and to obtain consent. Patient eligibility includes: 1) age 18 or over; and 2) active smokers defined as those who report smoking within the past 7 days.

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Audit and performance feedback (PF)
• BEHAVIORAL Financial Incentive (P4P)
• BEHAVIORAL Current Best Practices (CBP)