Hospitalized Smokers

Summary

Post-discharge support is a key component of effective treatment for hospitalized smokers, but very few hospitals provide it. Linking hospitalized smokers with free, proactive tobacco quitlines is an ideal way to provide supportive contact at discharge, because quitlines are effective and cost effective for smoking cessation. Many hospitals are beginning to fax-refer smokers to quitlines at discharge. Fax referral is convenient and is part of the current culture of medical communication channels. However, less than half of fax-referred smokers are successfully contacted and enrolled in quitline services. "Warm hand-off" is a novel approach to care transitions in which health care providers directly link patients that have substance abuse and mental health problems with specialists, using face-to-face or phone transfer. Warm hand-off achieves very high rates of treatment enrollment for these highly vulnerable groups.

Conditions

• Hospitalized Smokers

Interventions

OTHER

Warm Hand-off

Warm Hand-Off Staff brief intervention and warm hand-off (5 min): * Assess withdrawal, need for medication change * Describe warm hand-off process * Provide 2-page flyer * Perform call, leave room * Notify patients' nurse patient is talking to quitline Quitline session (20 min): * Collect minimum data set * Explore thoughts/feelings toward quitting * Provide medication education * Build plan to stay quit * Schedule next call Staff check-back (5 min): * Ask patient how session went * Ask if patient requests cessation medication script on discharge

OTHER

Fax

Fax Staff standard in-patient session: (30 minutes): * Assess withdrawal, need for medication change * Conduct assessment of smoking history, interest in quitting * Explore relevance, risks, rewards, and roadblocks (4Rs) related to smoking and quitting * Provide 2-page flyer * Provide medication education * Build plan to stay quit * Describe fax-referral process * Ask if patient requests cessation medication script on discharge

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Kansas Medical Center

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Kimber Richter, PhD · University of Kansas Medical Center

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2011-02-28

Primary Completion

2014-04-30

Completion

2016-01-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations