Using Electronic Health Records to Identify and Treat Tobacco Users

Audience:

Clinicians, health care systems, Quality Improvement, Information Technology, Primary Care, cessation counselors

Key Points:

1. The majority of smokers visit a primary care physician each year.
2. A small proportion of them leave those clinic visits with evidence-based counseling and medication to enhance their likelihood of successful tobacco cessation. 
3. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) provides an opportunity to systematically and consistently identify tobacco users and to prompt clinicians to deliver tobacco dependence treatment in primary care.
4. A health care system can increase the delivery of evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment by building the intervention into their electronic health record and clinic workflow.

Educational Experience:

The key points will be shared with a description of the process, examples, EHR screen shots and pre- and post-data.  This will be followed by participant questions and discussion.

Benefits:

Participants will learn about one project that incorporated evidence-based tobacco dependence treatment into a large health care system’s primary care clinics using the electronic health record and clinic workflow.