Grant Aims To Curb Tobacco Use Among Managed-Care Patients

If tobacco is the chief preventable cause of illness and death in America, then the nation’s health can be significantly improved by strengthening tobacco cessation strategies within managed-care organizations, the health-care delivery systems that serve 75 percent of insured U.S. workers.

That’s the concept behind a new $6.7-million program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and based at the UW Medical School. The program supports studies of policies and practices that reduce tobacco use by members of managed-care organizations such as HMOs, PPOs and point-of-service plans.

“Managed-care organizations have dual goals of improving health and reducing health-care costs,” says Michael C. Fiore, director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. “This program capitalizes on these goals as well as the organizations’ increased interest in, and capacity for, reducing health problems caused by tobacco. Our goal is to identify successful tobacco cessation projects that can be widely integrated into managed care.”

Over a two-year period ending in April 1996, Fiore led a panel which researched smoking-cessation practices for the federal Agency for Health Care Policy and Research and created guidelines for clinical practitioners.