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Hospital Tobacco Control

Partnership for Prevention’s ActionToQuit initiative advocates that all hospitals and health systems in the U.S. contribute to the public’s health by making tobacco cessation a priority. Specifically, we propose that all patients be screened for tobacco as a standard practice and tobacco users be offered cessation treatment and follow-up support to help them quit and remain smoke-free. While this is currently a policy in some hospitals, by and large it is not routine procedure in spite of broad agreement that tobacco cessation treatments are both effective and cost-effective. Hospitalization provides an ideal opportunity to deliver tobacco interventions that can help tobacco users quit. In fact, cessation treatment is one of the most important actions medical professionals can take for their patients.

In 2010, Partnership for Prevention provided funding to the Joint Commission to develop and test a new set of tobacco cessation performance measures. The tobacco cessation measure set was approved in 2011by the Joint Commission and was made available for selection by hospitals in January 2012. Like all Joint Commission measure sets, this one is not mandatory, but rather one of many from which hospitals can choose to meet certification requirements.

While this is a significant step forward for health system tobacco cessation, there is still much work to be done. Because the measure set is not mandatory, most hospitals will likely not select it for implementation in 2012. Second, it only applies to hospital inpatients and does not impact outpatients. Third, it doesn’t necessarily affect non-hospital systems such as community health centers and addictions treatment facilities that also serve patients who use tobacco.

State and local advocates should consider interacting with their hospitals and other health systems to urge them to screen all patients for tobacco use and provide evidence-based treatment those who use tobacco. Partnering with state hospital associations may be beneficial. Ideally, patient tobacco cessation services would be offered voluntarily by all health systems as a nationwide practice, regardless of Joint Commission certification.

Joint Commission Project 

1. Helping Patients Quit: Implementing the Joint Commission Tobacco Measure Set in Your Hospital

2. Hospital Tobacco Cessation - An Advocacy Letter to the National Quality Forum

3. Letter to Dr. Donald M. Berwick - Request to add the Joint Commission Tobacco Measure Set to the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting
 

Featured Resources

1. New England Journal of Medicine - The Joint Commission's New Tobacco-Cessation Measures — Will Hospitals Do the Right Thing?

2. Tobacco-Free Toolkit for Community Health Facilities  

3. Webinar: Helping Patients Quit: Implementing The Joint Commission Tobacco Measure Set in Your Hospital, with Dr. Nancy Rigotti and Nancy Lawler.  View the video here. You can also view the slides here. Please click here to view the  Q&A from the webinar.

4. Webinar: The Role of Hospitals in Tobacco Cessation, with Dr. Andew Pipe and Rob Adsit. View the video here. You can also view the slides here. Please click here to view the Q&A from the webinar.

5. New England Journal of Medicine - Treating Smokers in the Health Care Setting

6.  University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention
Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence in Hospitalized Patients: A Practical Guide 2012 Update

7. An Interview with Nancy Rigotti, MD, Harvard Medical School

8. "Integrating Comprehensive Tobacco Treatment into the Evolving U.S. Health Care System," an article by Nancy Rigotti, MD (2011).

9. University of Ottawa Heart Institute 
    Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation

 
Health Professionals / Continuing Education

1. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
    Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence- Quick Referece Guide for Clinicians

2. University of Wisconsin Centers for Tobacco Research and Intervention
    Healthcare Providers Tools for Treating Tobacco Dependence

3. American Medical Association
    Educating Physicians on Controversies & Challenges in Health: Smoking Cessation in Special Populations

Other Resources for Hospitals

1. Partnership for Prevention and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
    Healthcare Provider Reminder Systems

2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
    A Practical Guide to Working with Health-Care Systems on Tobacco-Use Treatments

3. American Society of Health System Pharmacists 
    Strategies to Enhance Tobacco Cessation Education in your Hospital

4. University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention 
    Case Studies Volume II: Innovated Approaches

    Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence: Training Manual for Healthcare Providers 
    
    Treating Tobacco Use Dependence: A Toolkit for Dental Office Teams

5. Destination Tobacco-Free:  Healthiest State in the Nation Campaign
    The Washington Health Foundation
    Working with Patients

6. University of California, San Francisco
    Smoking Cessation Leadership Center

7. University of California, San Francisco 
    Rx for Change

8. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Public Health Service  
    Smokers Quit: A Guide for Clinicians

9. "A Demonstration Project for Using Electronic Health Record to Identify and Treat Tobacco Users," an Article by Lindholm C., Adsit,  R., Bain, P., Reber, M. P., Brein, T., Redmond, L., Smith, S., & Fiore, C. M. (2010).

10. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
     System Change: Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence
 

Tobacco Cessation Case Studies

1. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts

2. State of Oklahoma

3. State of North Carolina

4. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System

5. Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation in Ontario, Canada

Smoke-Free Case Studies

Coming Soon! 

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