C06 – Oh the (Virtual) Places You Will Go: Innovative Approaches to Advancing Tobacco Treatment through Virtual Training and Digital Interventions

Summary

The road to advancing tobacco treatment in healthcare settings is to partner with integrated behavioral health, offer virtual training and support, and link to digital resources to help patients reach their goals. Integrated care settings provide a unique opportunity to address tobacco use disorder; the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Specialized training for providers & digital touchpoints for patients are means to impact the burden and significant disparities related to smoking. Targeted training is essential to ensuring tobacco use is addressed and treatment offered at every visit. Time and cost can be challenges when considering integrating training and treatment into every day workflow, so we have found that adding virtual training and referrals to digital touchpoints and state quitlines that utilize them is most effective. These innovations offer opportunities to reduce disparities and barriers to tobacco treatment while increasing flexibility and ease of access for both provider and patient. Moreover, this allows providers to cast a broader net to reach and support tobacco users with evidence-based treatment. Participants in this session will learn how to utilize brief interventions to address tobacco use disorder in their practices, connect patients to digital treatment interventions and connect providers to available resources available to increase skill and comfort in addressing tobacco use disorder. Additionally, ways to develop practical skills, opportunities to further inter-professional training, and new ways to use technology to support tobacco treatment will be shared and practiced.