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For Immediate Release, September 7, 2007 — Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU), one of the state’s largest hospitals, next week will join a growing number of Oregon hospitals to officially snuff out tobacco—for patients, visitors, employees, and students. OHSU’s move to ban tobacco marks a trend among hospitals in Oregon and nationwide.
Nearly one-third of Oregon’s hospitals, 17 in all, have tobacco-free campuses, according to a telephone survey conducted last spring. The survey was by Step Up!, a statewide partnership supporting hospitals to improve health by reducing tobacco use.
After nearly two years of preparation, OHSU’s tobacco-free policy becomes official Sept. 17. “In fulfilling our mission of healing, teaching, discovery and service, we are obliged to serve as a model for healthy behaviors,” said OHSU president, Dr. Joe Robertson.
As hospitals eliminate smoking and chewing tobacco from their campuses, they also are stepping up efforts to help individuals kick their addiction to nicotine. “Most smokers know the difficulties of quitting,” said Dr. David Gonzales, senior researcher, OHSU Smoking Cessation Research Center. “But what most people don’t know is that there are effective medications and new methods to help smokers quit once they decide to take that step.”
Through patient care, employee health benefits, and a support program for visitors, OHSU will offer treatment to help smokers quit—or at least stave off cravings while at the hospital.
Research shows that tobacco cessation medications and counseling, used to address both a smoker’s physical addiction and daily habits, can double or triple the chances of successfully quitting.
National quality standards measure how hospitals address smoking for patients with pneumonia, myocardial infarction, and congestive heart failure. Oregon falls below the national average in its rate of tobacco cessation counseling for patients with those diagnoses, according to the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.
Step Up! works to improve how Oregon hospitals treat smokers for their addiction—and provide a national model for how it can be done. The effort supports Oregon hospitals to help patients and employees quit tobacco, create tobacco-free campuses, and lead other businesses to curb tobacco use. Step Up! was started in Oregon last year with funding from the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, a national program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Partners include Oregon’s Association of Hospitals & Health Systems, Office of Rural Health, Tobacco Prevention & Education Program, Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Nurses Association, Medical Association, Acumentra Health, and the Make It Your Business Campaign.
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Step Up! Hospital Survey Fact Sheet
About the Survey
Step Up! partners in March 2007 contacted Oregon’s 57 hospitals about policies regarding tobacco use on the campus. Fifty four hospitals responded. The Oregon Tobacco Prevention & Education Program collected and analyzed the data.
About Step Up!
Step Up! is a partnership founded in 2006 that supports hospitals to:
- Make the hospital campus tobacco-free
- Provide effective stop-smoking benefits for all employees
- Ask, advise, and assist all patients to quit tobacco
- Lead other local businesses to curb tobacco use
Hospital administrators, staff, and other professionals in the community work collaboratively to forge and promote strategies, tools, and policies that encourage hospital patients, employees and community members to quit tobacco.
Step Up! was started in Oregon as a national model with funding from the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, a national program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Partners include Oregon’s Association of Hospitals & Health Systems, Office of Rural Health, Acumentra Health, Tobacco Prevention & Education Program, Association of Occupational Health Nurses, Nurses Association, Medical Association, and the Make It Your Business Campaign.
Step Up! Support for Hospitals
On October 19, every hospital in Oregon can send one participant to Rx for Change, a nationally recognized program to help patients quit using tobacco. Hospital professionals who agree to train others in their facility can receive the training at no charge. For more information, go to https://programs.regweb.com/beattygroup/rxforchange/index.cfm
Step Up! also has a new tobacco-free hospital toolkit, posted at http://www.oahhs.org
Why Step Up?
For more than 40 years, we have known about the devastating health effects of smoking. Hospitals, which treat tobacco users, have professional and economic reasons to curb its use among patients, employees and community members:
- Smoking is the leading preventable cause of premature death and disability
- Smoking retards wound healing, whether the wound is surgical or the result of trauma or burns
- Recovery room stays are 20 percent longer for smokers than non-smokers
- Broken bones take almost twice as long to heal for smokers
- Each week 133 Oregonians die from tobacco-related illnesses
- Oregon smokers cost over $2 billion per year in medical expenses and lost productivity
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