Two online training courses created by UW-CTRI are among the most popular at UW among healthcare providers. The UW-CTRI “Tobacco 101” training is the second-most popular training on the UW Interprofessional Continuing Education (CE) Partnership platform. The most popular course on the platform is a course on opioids required for all clinicians, with 978 students.
The third most-popular course is the tobacco training for behavioral health providers, posted online last summer by the Wisconsin Nicotine Treatment Integration Project (WiNTiP) with 442 total registrations. It’s a collaboration between the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and UW-CTRI led by UW-CTRI Researcher Dr. Bruce Christiansen. It consists of two courses:
- Course 1 has enrolled 429 people, and of those more than 138 have claimed credit for completing some or all of the course. Participants have come from 43 states, led by 201 from Wisconsin, 30 from Oregon and 18 from Pennsylvania. People from Egypt, Spain, and Canada have taken at least part of the course. Most of those who evaluated the course gave it high marks.
- Course 2 has enrolled 298, with more than 84 of those participants claiming credits. This course has hosted participants from 40 states, including 143 from Wisconsin. One participant from Egypt took the course.
Upon completion of this course, learners have:
- Articulated what constitutes evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment.
- Developed a plan to tailor these treatments and policies to their settings.
- Implemented the plan within a year.
“The success of this training rests, in part, with our partnership with Julie Martinelli, educational technology manager at the Office of Continuing Professional Development,” Christiansen said. “Julie developed a dynamite structure for our content.”
The original “Tobacco 101” course was developed by UW-CTRI staff, including Wendy Theobald and Rob Adsit, in 2002 and has been updated over the years. It provides an overview on how to treat tobacco dependence, based on the US Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guidelines: Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence, which were chaired by UW-CTRI Director Dr. Michael Fiore. More than 1,163 people have taken the course, including more than 380 for credit. Upon completion of this activity, participants have:
- Described the rationale for treating tobacco dependence.
- Explained why it is a chronic disease.
- Initiated clinical interventions for tobacco users who are willing to quit as well as users who are not willing to make a quit attempt.
- Assisted users attempting to quit with strategies designed to prevent relapse.
- Implemented appropriate strategies to assist special populations of smokers.
All three CE courses are free and credits are available to physicians, nurses, physician assistants, social workers, behavioral health providers, and other healthcare providers. Thanks in part to these trainings, as well as the work of the Wisconsin Tobacco Control Program and the UW-CTRI Outreach Program, Wisconsin leads the nation in clinician interventions to quit smoking.
Christiansen and colleagues are also developing a third online training featuring the “Bucket Approach” to helping patients with severe behavioral health challenges to quit smoking, available in fall of 2019.