The Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education serves as a focal point for a broad range of research, education, and public service activities for 46 faculty in 11 departments and all 4 schools at UCSF, as well as colleagues at UC Berkeley and UC Merced. It is part of the UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute and its membership is congruent with the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Tobacco Control Program. The Center is also a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Tobacco Control.
The Joint Commission’s New Tobacco-Use Measures — Will Hospitals Do the Right Thing?
A recently published article in The New England Journal of Medicine/Perspective says that few factors influence health care standards in the United States today more than the actions of the Joint Commission (formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations).
And few opportunities hold more promise for increasing the rate of tobacco-use cessation than patient contact with the health care system. Health care visits represent teachable moments when a patient’s very real fears and concerns about tobacco use can provide a particularly powerful motivation to quit. The Joint Commission’s new Tobacco Cessation Performance Measure-Set {Q1}took effect on January 1, 2012. Will implementation of these measures improve smoking-cessation treatment{Q2} by capitalizing on the Joint Commission’s power to change hospital care practices and the opportunity offered by health care encounters? Or will hospitals neglect this opportunity, citing the pressures of other priorities?
Faculty member Steve Schroeder, MD et alia discuss in their recently published article The Joint Commission’s New Tobacco-Use Measures — Will Hospitals Do the Right Thing? the continued urgent need for effective tobacco-cessation interventions.
Please click here to read the full article.