Recorded presentation

Catherine Rohweder, MPH, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, UNC-Chapel Hill, 725 Airport Road, CB# 7590, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7590, 919-966-6879, rohweder@email.unc.edu, Cathy L. Melvin, PhD, MPH, Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research and Smoke-Free Families National Dissemination Office, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 725 Airport Road, CB # 7590, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7590, and Dianne C. Barker, MHS, Barker Bi-Coastal Health Consultants, 3556 Elm Dr., Calabasas, CA 91302.

The Smoke-Free Families Prenatal Demonstration Projects are a collaborative effort between staff at the National Dissemination Office (NDO) and three grantee organizations in Oregon, Maine, and Oklahoma. The projects are using systems-level interventions to incorporate smoking cessation services into case management and prenatal care services. To describe and measure program fidelity (process evaluation), the NDO is using a standardized evaluation tool from the chronic care field that has been modified for prenatal tobacco treatment. The quality improvement survey is being delivered across projects, and incorporates scores from a scale with responses to open-ended questions. Data were collected in 2003 from the first demonstration project, Oregon Smoke-Free Mothers and Babies, and three levels of program participants were interviewed: maternity case managers, state health department staff, and steering committee members. Descriptive statistics were calculated to assess the level of support for cessation services, and qualitative methods were used to synthesize common themes and define the specific implementation strategies. The results revealed that six months after project initiation, there was a good infrastructure in place for smoking cessation services. Thirty distinct strategies were identified in the qualitative data, and every one matched the recommended systems changes from the standardized assessment tool. Further details regarding the results will be shared, along with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of using this particular analytic approach. The quality improvement instrument may be further modified for other organizations that are interested in measuring systems changes across large provider networks as part of a comprehensive program evaluation.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the purpose and background of the Smoke-Free Families Prenatal Demonstration Projects
• List five systems-level strategies implemented by the first project
• Assess whether the quality improvement instrument described can be used within their own organization

Keywords: Evaluation, Quality Improvement

Related Web page: www.smokefreefamilies.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation