By Patricia Breakey
DELHI _ O'Connor Hospital in Delhi is the first hospital to receive a Gold Level Performance Award from the Center for Smoking Cessation at Seton Health and the American Cancer Society Eastern Division.
O'Connor Hospital was honored for assisting its patients in their efforts to quit smoking, but all smokers will have another chance to quit tobacco during the Great American Smokeout today. The goal of the smokeout is to encourage smokers to quit on that day in the hopes that they will do so for good.
Seton Hall Center director Peggy Keigley said Public Health Service guidelines were issued in 1996, 2000 and 2008 to help hospitals assist patients so they can quit smoking.
Keigley said there are no laws requiring hospitals to comply, so Seton Hall set up criteria for hospitals to indicate they have met the guidelines.
"This is a brand-new initiative, and O'Connor Hospital is the first to receive the award," Keigley said Wednesday.
The Gold Performance Award recognizes O'Connor as a leader in quality performance by implementing and adopting as policy the Clinical Practice Guideline _ Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence.
O'Connor medical surgical nurse manager Barbara Garcia said the hospital's nurses have been collecting data from patients for a year and a half.
Garcia said the patients are screened for tobacco use and provided with bedside cessation counseling, cessation medication and referrals to resources including the New York State Smokers' Quitline. The hospital has also made the grounds tobacco-free.
"The patients fill out forms, and they are given information on smoking," she said. "We have been giving out the patch to help people stop."
Garcia said the patient charts are reviewed quarterly, and a report is sent to the Seton Health Center.
"We have found that less than 10 percent are true smokers who are actually still smoking," Garcia said. "But we also gather information about whether they smoked in the past and if they need assistance to help them stay stopped."
Garcia credited the 20 to 25 nurses on staff with gathering the information that helped win the award.
About one out of every five adults smokes in upstate New York, and about 61 percent of them have tried to quit, according to a report released by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.
"For someone addicted to smoking, quitting can be a formidable challenge," Dr. Robert J. Holzhauer, Excellus vice president and chief medical officer, said in a media release.
The good news is that smoking rates have decreased throughout upstate New York.
According to the report, "Cigarette Smoking and Costs Among Upstate New York Adults":
ä The upstate New York adult smoking rate declined from 25.5 percent in 2003 to 21.4 percent in 2007.
ä About 818,000 adults in upstate New York smoked in 2007, and about 61 percent of them said they tried to quit in the last 12 months.
ä Adult smokers in upstate New York account for about $1.7 billion in excess medical costs annually, ranging from $170.1 million annually in the Southern Tier to $517.9 million annually in western New York.
For assistance quitting, call the New York State Smokers' Quitline at (866) 697-8487.
To access the smoking report, go to www.excellusbcbs.com and click on "Policy and Research."
