Documentation of tobacco use and cessation assistance during hospital-outpatient visits

Audience: Healthcare professionals and administrators.

Key Points: The purpose of this study is to identify the proportion of hospital-outpatient visits with documented tobacco use, and assistance with tobacco cessation. The Public Health Services (PHS) Guideline recommends that healthcare providers assess tobacco use and assist patients in quitting. Outpatient data from 2005-2009 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) were utilized to estimate the weighted percent of hospital-outpatient visits with documented tobacco use and assistance with cessation. The NHAMCS is a national probability sample survey of hospital visits by patients. The sample included 127,784 outpatient visits among persons 18+. From 2005-2009, approximately 372 million visits were made to hospital outpatient departments by adults, of which 59 million were documented as current tobacco users. Overall, 39.9% of hospital-outpatient visits did not include any information on tobacco use (2005: 44.5%; 2006: 39.1%; 2007: 42.5%; 2008: 38.2%; 2009: 36.2%). This presentation will highlight the characteristics (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, insurance type, clinic type, etc.) of current tobacco users who had a hospital-outpatient visit and, whether disparities exist in provision of cessation assistance across these groups.

Educational Experience: Participants will learn about the differences in the characteristics of tobacco users with hospital-outpatient visits in documentation of tobacco use and provision of assistance with tobacco cessation.

Benefits: This information will provide an understanding of healthcare utilization patterns for current tobacco users and how patient visits may align with PHS guidelines for cessation. Potential for opportunities include using this data to promote having tobacco cessation as a covered benefit and in electronic health records.