Background: Quit Victoria is committed to the prevention of tobacco-caused deaths and diseases in the community through cessation programs and smokefree initiatives. Training programs are offered for health professionals wishing to develop their knowledge and confidence in the area of smoking cessation to provide brief intervention to their patients as well as facilitate Quit courses in the community. Health professionals are encouraged to provide advice and support on smoking cessation as part of their routine care. Many health professionals however, have indicated a number of challenges in doing this, including a lack of time to participate in training. There is increasing evidence that health professionals are under growing patient and time demands as well as being expected to keep up with the most current professional knowledge in the area of tobacco control.

Strategy: To address this, Quit Victoria is developing on-line learning modules for specific health conditions, to provide easy and efficient access for health professionals to a range of smoking cessation training. Quit's on-line training program is tailored to meet the health professionals' challenge of accessing up-to-date information in their busy professional lives. The assessment of their learning will provide feedback on their own knowledge, and a statement of how they achieved. Learning objectives, outcomes and summaries have been developed for the different modules.

Conclusion: This project is in the implementation stage. The feedback gained from the health professionals who have attended Quit's training will be incorporated into the operation of the site, the content and the way it is delivered.