Austin, Texas - (June 17, 2011) - The Seton Healthcare Family's Blackstock Family Health Center has been recognized by the American Academy of Family Physicians for successful completion of a Tobacco Cessation Office Champions pilot project. During the year-long project, Blackstock implemented a series of system changes to integrate tobacco cessation activities into daily office routines and create a culture that encourages patients to quit smoking.
Cigarette smoking results in 440,000 deaths in the United States each year, making it the most preventable cause of death. Seventy percent of the 46 million current smokers in the United States would like to quit, but smokers are often reluctant to ask their physician for assistance. Tobacco dependence often requires repeated intervention and multiple quit attempts.
The AAFP's pilot project trained "Office Champions" -- through an online training module, live teleconferences and a practice manual -- to take on a leadership role in improving their family medicine practice's clinical and operational systems. Office Champions were required to submit an implementation plan to the AAFP, and track and report results.
"The U.S. Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guideline calls on clinicians to change the culture and practice patterns in their offices to ensure that every patient who uses tobacco is identified, advised to quit, and offered evidence-based treatments," said Tom Houston, M.D., Chair of the AAFP's Tobacco Cessation Advisory Committee. "The changes Blackstock made during this project could impact their patients for years to come."
Blackstock was one of only 50 family medicine offices
across the United States selected to participate in the Office
Champions pilot project. The results of the project, which is
supported by a grant from Pfizer Inc, will be disseminated to
family medicine practices nationwide.
Seton is proud to have four hospitals – the only hospitals in Central Texas - that have earned the