Integrated Smoking Cessation Treatment for Smokers With Serious Mental Illness

Academic detailing (AD) is a targeted continuing medical education (CME) strategy that adapts social marketing techniques, using mixed interactive and didactic formats in individual and group settings integrated into the practice setting to promote beneficial changes in medical care. AD helps clinicians understand and adopt targeted evidence-based practices and is one of the few Continuing Medical Education (CME) interventions that has consistently demonstrated improved alignment of physician prescribing behavior with evidence-based practice.

Community Health Worker (CHW) The CHW will offer to support patients and prescribers in health promotion and preventive care in general and specifically to support communication between the primary care provider and patient regarding smoking status, smoking cessation, and to aid implementation of any smoking cessation treatments recommended by prescribers. CHWs will complete the standard CHW certificate training program in general preventive medicine, available through the Boston Public Health Commission. CHWs will then receive the additional specialized training.

Usual care (TAU) for adults with SMI in Massachusetts consists of rehabilitation services publicly funded by the state and traditional fee for service outpatient medical and psychiatric care. Importantly, medical care is not programmatically integrated with the psychiatric rehabilitation services.