Chronic Diseases and AN Tobacco Use: Improving Clinical Services

Audience:

Healthcare Providers and Tobacco Program Managers in Clinical settings.

Key Points:

Alaska Natives (AN) have the highest rate of tobacco use in Alaska. The prevalence of cigarette smoking is 39% for AN compared to 19% for all Alaskans (BRFSS 2009).  Alaska Tribal Health System’s (ATHS) Comprehensive Cancer Plan established a goal focused on tobacco to “reduce cancer incidence, illness, and death due to tobacco use among Alaska Natives.” 

The ANTHC Cancer program recognized the need for increased collaboration to address the tobacco use disparity among AN. While there have been many tobacco policy and clinical cessation successes within the ATHS, the disproportionally high tobacco use rate among AN people indicates the need for innovative and collaborative partnerships to substantially impact tobacco use.

Educational Experience:

The goal of the Chronic Disease and Tobacco Use Initiative was to create a collaborative workgroup involving healthcare professionals from specialty clinics at the AN Medical Center. 

Workgroup outcomes resulted in increased communication between specialty clinics and a streamlined clinical protocol for high risk patients seeking cessation services.  The need for additional health education materials was identified as well as the overall need for better coordination of tobacco education and treatment services hospital-wide. 

 Benefits:

The ANTHC Chronic Disease initiative demonstrates the value of identifying health care professionals to assist with process improvement projects across chronic disease programs.  As the need for communication and coordinated referrals to the tobacco program was identified, it became evident that a system-wide evaluation tobacco cessation protocol needed to be addressed.