Convenient Smoking Cessation Treatment Helps Cancer Patients Quit

Siteman Cancer Center, a partnership between BJC HealthCare’s Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, implemented a tobacco cessation program that provides treatment and resources to patients during their regular appointments instead of referring them for additional appointments and assessments with cessation specialists. In the first five months of the program, screening rates for tobacco use increased from 48% to 90%. Patients were connected with ongoing cessation counseling 2.5 times more frequently and cessation medication 5 times more frequently than they were previously, and the percentage of cancer patients who successfully went at least six months without smoking increased from 12% to 17%. Clinicians use the same steps and script to screen each patient for tobacco use, provide brief cessation advice, and order medication and ongoing counseling at the point of care. This reliable, replicable model was created as part of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Moonshot Initiative, which supports tobacco treatment programs at multiple NCI-designated cancer centers.

How They Did It

• Provided training to switch from a specialist-based cessation model to a point-of-care workflow
• Implemented tools and scripts that help care teams collaborate on counseling and treatment
• Showed physicians feedback reports so they could see how they compared with their peers

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