Hospital staff actively looking for those who want to kick the habit

Norman Regional Hospital might have just the thing to help smokers wanting to kick the habit a means to keep their New Year’s resolutions. Beginning Jan. 1, Norman Regional will take an active stance against tobacco use with a campaign focusing on awareness and education called Smoking Cessation. This program will be different from the current one because the hospital staff will actively look for smokers who want to quit. The way our culture is today, everybody knows smoking is bad, but we have left it upon the smoker to find the information and stop smoking, said Tom Kuhls, M.D. and Norman Regional physician. While the hospital will still offer quit-smoking services to the general community, the new version will focus on hospital patients and employees in order to get the ball rolling on class attendance. According to Paula Price, R.N. and director of education and community for the hospital, the educational program that has been in place for 10 years was extremely under-utilized. In order to offer the classes, the hospital has to provide counselors and trained specialists. However, class attendance was always very small, making it difficult to put a class together. This proved the existing program was not working. It is obviously very difficult to stop smoking, Price said. Lately there has been an increase in either the number of people who smoke or the number of cigarettes each person smokes per day. Oklahoma’s health statistics demonstrate an increased rate of smokers as compared to most states. The study found 25 percent of Oklahomans smoke with the average smoker using roughly 20 cigarettes per day. If current patterns hold, five million people nationally 18 years of age and younger will die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses. Those and other similar statistics convinced Norman Regional’s staff that its current quit-smoking program was not operating at full capacity. For patients who smoke, the hospital will alter its existing educational program to emphasize a comprehensive smoking cessation program beginning when the patient comes into the hospital, and then following them through to the outpatient setting. Hospital staff members will take an active stance by visiting the patients’ rooms and sharing information concerning the dangers of smoking and how to quit. If the patient is interested, the hospital will follow up with a call concerning the options that are available, such as Smoking Cessation classes and counseling, in an effort to help the patient kick the habit. Comparable treatment will be available for employees as well. Many of the people that come into the hospital today have smoking related diseases, Kuhls said. At that time you are more motivated to stop smoking, since you’re already in the hospital and you don’t have to drive to and from the classes. This gives us a good opportunity to target smokers and get people into those classes. To kick off the non-smoking campaign, Norman Regional has placed signs at main hospital entrances, at the entrance of the cafeteria, on all cafeteria tables and in patient rooms. Other changes that will take place include not allowing people to smoke at hospital entrances. Also, the area designated for smoking, which was the hospital’s Courtyard, is scheduled to be moved to the old Emergency Department drive, away from a main hospital artery where smoke can seep around the windows and into the hospital.

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