Fax Referrals, Academic Detailing, and Tobacco Quitline Use: a Randomized Trial

Background: Fax referral programs quickly and economically can link smokers' visiting primary care clinics to state-based telephone quitlines. Yet, it is unclear how to optimize use of this strategy.

Purpose: To evaluate the potential of enhanced academic detailing in clinics (i.e., on-site training, technical assistance, and performance feedback) to boost utilization of a fax referral program called Fax to Quit.

Design: Participants were randomized to one of two intervention conditions.

Setting/participants: Participants were drawn from 49 primary care clinics in southeastern Wisconsin. The sample size was based on a power analysis in which the control intervention condition was estimated to generate 0.5 referrals/clinic/month and the experimental condition 2.0 referrals/clinic/month.

Interventions: One of two fax referral program interventions was administered: the control condition Fax to Quit-Only (F2Q-Only) or the experimental condition Fax to Quit plus Enhanced Academic Detailing (F2Q+EAD).

Main Outcome Measures: Clinic- and clinician-specific referral and quality referral rates (those resulting in quitline enrollment) were measured for 13 months post-intervention, starting in March 2009.

Results: Mean number of post-intervention referrals/clinician to the Wisconsin Tobacco Quitline was 5.6 times greater for F2Q+EAD (8.5, SD=7.0) compared to F2Q-Only (1.6, SD=3.6, p<0.001). The F2Q+EAD (4.8, SD=4.1) condition produced a greater mean number of quality referrals/clinician than did the F2Q-Only (0.86, SD=1.8, p<0.001) condition. Data were analyzed in 2010.

Conclusions: Enhanced academic detailing, which included on-site training, technical assistance, and performance feedback, increased the number of referrals more than fivefold over a fax referral program implemented without such enhanced academic detailing.

Trial Registration: This study is registered at Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00989755.