StepUp Campaign

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StepUp Campaign

Step Up!, founded in 2006, is a statewide partnership to improve health by supporting 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.

Partners include the Oregon Tobacco Prevention & Education Program, the Oregon Association of Hospitals & Health Systems, Acumentra Health, the Oregon Nurses Association, Make It Your Business: Insure a Tobacco-Free Workforce, the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, and a growing number of hospitals and professional associations.

Why StepUp?

For more than 40 years, we have known about the devastating health effects of smoking. Hospitals, which treat tobacco users, have professional economic reasons to curb its use among patients, employees and community members:

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
Employees that smoke cost over $2 billion/year in medical expenses and lost productivity

Some hospitals already use innovative approaches to reduce smoking. Most, however, work independently on the challenges of new tobacco-free policies, benefit packages, and patient cessation services. Research shows protocols and policies can curb tobacco use and its health and economic toll. At a time of growing patient safety concerns and skyrocketing health care costs, Oregon hospitals and the professionals who work in them can step up and show a unified commitment to health.

How do I StepUp?

You can get ideas for how to StepUp by reviewing the efforts of many Oregon hospitals implementing tobacco-free policies. Click on the Tobacco-Free Hospital Toolkit links to view samples of policies, presentations, a check-list to success, tobacco-free statements, campus signage and many other resources to support you during your transition.

To add your name to the effort and find out more, contact the Tobacco Cessation Coordinator, Oregon Tobacco Prevention & Education Program at 971-673-0984.

Questions? Call Diane Waldo, OAHHS director of quality and clinical services, 503-479-6016 or email diane.waldo@oahhs.org

Tobacco-Free Hospitals Kit

Secondhand smoke kills 800 Oregonians each year. It contains 4,000 chemicals, 50 of which cause cancer, including formaldehyde, cyanide, lead, carbon monoxide and arsenic. The purpose of the Tobacco-free Hospitals Kit is to assist hospital staff with promoting and developing tobacco-free policies to protect all Oregonians from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

This kit includes:

Why be tobacco free: An introduction to the kit and a list of the top reasons to go tobacco free.
Steps to success checklist: A quick-start guide on how to get started on implementing a tobacco-free policy and what steps to take along the way.
Background information and case studies: A list of local hospitals and health systems that have gone tobacco free, case studies about campuses that have already successfully implemented tobacco-free policies in Oregon and an overview of sample materials used in other states.
Sample policies: Sample policies developed and implemented by hospitals and health systems in Oregon .
Communications tools: A variety of media and outreach tools that have helped others communicate consistent, policy-related messages to key stakeholders, as well as media coverage about tobacco-free policies in Oregon and nationwide.
Resources: List of frequently asked questions, list of hospital staff willing to be contacted, Past Step Up forum presentations, list of Step Up campaign staff and helpful web sites.

If you have examples or information you want to share with others, please contact the Oregon Tobacco Cessation Coordinator at 971-673-0984. We look forward to working with you on tobacco-free policies in your areas. Because everyone has the right to breathe clean air.

ADDITIONAL MEMBER TOOLKIT INFORMATION COMING SOON

Smoking & Tobacco

4000 Kruse Way Place
Building 2, Suite 100
Lake Oswego, Oregon 97035
503-636-2204 | Fax: 503-636-8310
info@oahhs.org

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