Context

Hospitalisation represents a potent ‘teachable moment’ for the delivery of smoking cessation interventions. Many smokers are hospitalised for tobacco-related diseases that personalise the risks of persistent smoking and thereby enhance motivation to quit and receptivity to tobacco cessation assistance. Most hospitals are smoke-free and many have adopted broad, smoke-free campus policies that further restrict smoking on hospital grounds, making smoking during hospitalisation particularly difficult and inconvenient. These external restrictions increase the likelihood of smokers being amenable to the use of tobacco cessation medications to help manage symptoms of acute nicotine withdrawal. Recognising the potential value of promoting smoking cessation during hospitalisation, the US Joint Commission has established a set of tobacco cessation performance indicators in an effort to improve …