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Collecting tobacco cessation treatment data from healthcare providers – 8/17/11
Q: Rhode Island is looking for help from other states on collecting tobacco cessation counseling/treatment data from primary care physicians and health centers. Rhode Island would like to know:
- What tobacco cessation treatment data does your state program collect or have access to?
- How do you collect the tobacco cessation treatment data? What reporting systems are in place?
- Are there state policies/statutes/initiatives that require primary care physicians and health centers to collect and report this data?
If your state is collecting this type of data, examples of forms or templates for collecting data, as well as sample policy language would be much appreciated.
A:
- Alabama: Please see our dental survey info with respect to cessation treatment data being collected:
About reporting systems:At the beginning of each federal grant year, the tobacco area coordinators put together a list of cessation resources in their public health area that includes the name and contact information for each resource. This information is posted on our Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) website and shared with our vendor so that it can be disseminated to our callers who prefer a “bricks and mortar” site for their cessation efforts. We refer callers out to area programs if they request it, and we note in their chart the services to which they were referred.
The ADPH Tobacco Prevention Control Program uses Ask, Advise, Refer and Prescribe, a Healthcare Provider Reminder System. The program provides training to healthcare and social services providers on a brief evidence-based tobacco use treatment to their clients. This includes tobacco screening, behavioral counseling and medication, if applicable.
About policies/statutes/initiatives: No, there are no state statutes that require healthcare providers to report tobacco, since tobacco use isn't a reportable condition in Alabama.
- Arkansas: Look at our 2009-2010 Healthcare Provider Tobacco Survey to understand what is being done at present.
We are doing a significant outreach to healthcare providers with a contract with Alere (also our quitline provider). Read more about the Arkansas Systems Training and Outreach Program here. Arkansas is NOT per se, capturing what individual healthcare providers are doing vis a vis tobacco cessation.
- Virginia: The Virginia Department of Health’s diabetes and heart disease/stroke prevention projects have an ongoing quality improvement project with a majority of community health centers in the state that involves collection of this data through the CHC’s electronic medical record (EMR) system. The information will be collected on patients diagnosed with either diabetes/pre-diabetes or cardiovascular disease. This project is funded through each project’s core cooperative agreements with the CDC.
Through enhancements to the EMR, the system will collect information about patients’ tobacco use status, whether or not tobacco cessation counseling was provided by the clinician, and whether or not the patient was referred to the state Quitline. There is no plan to collect more specific information (e.g., treatment type, outcome) at this time.
We are not aware of any policies or laws that require the CHCs to collect and report this data to the health department or other public health entities.
- West Virginia: Several years ago we did survey physicians and primary care practices for info and tobacco use data among their patients, but the return and participation was poor.
West Virginia essentially only collects and evaluates tobacco cessation treatment data, referrals, etc. that are done through the West Virginia Tobacco Cessation Quitline. We have 10+ years of reporting of this quitline data.
There are no specific state policies/statutes/initiatives that require primary care physicians and health centers to collect and report this data.
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Additional Resources:
- Past Help Your Peers request, Monitoring health records on tobacco cessation treatment – 3/14/11
- The CSTE State Reportable Conditions Assessment (SRCA), maintained by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), is an annual assessment of reporting requirements for infectious and non-infectious conditions that must be reported to public health according to a jurisdiction’s regulations or legislation. As of August 2011, the SRCA does not include any mention of state requirements for healthcare providers to document tobacco use.
- New Joint Commission Tobacco Cessation Performance Measures: The Joint Commission, the not-for-profit organization responsible for accrediting and certifying most hospitals in America, has updated its performance measures regarding the identification and treatment of tobacco users during hospitalizations. Effective January 1, 2012, the new tobacco cessation performance measure set will be included as one of 14 performance measure sets for hospitals of the Joint Commission. Importantly, hospitals have to option to choose four from these 14 performance measure sets for their periodic reviews. Thus, they may or may not choose to be evaluated on the tobacco cessation measure set. An external Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) of tobacco cessation and public health experts assisted the Joint Commission in developing these measures. The TAP was advisory in nature and the Joint Commission made all final decisions regarding the new tobacco cessation performance measure set. A description of the Joint Commission tobacco cessation performance measure set and resources for hospitals can be found here.
Note: these materials were developed by the Partnership for Prevention; questions about selecting and implementing the new tobacco treatment measures should be directed to the Joint Commission.
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