For larger healthcare organizations, it’s a good idea to establish this approach in writing, set high standards, require documentation and create an incentive for providers.

A best practice is often to include the Quit Line as part of the fourth step in a five-part intervention:
1. Ask the patient about tobacco use.
2. Advise him or her to quit.
3. Assess the person’s willingness to quit.
4. Assist the patient by prescribing the appropriate pharmacotherapy and referring him or her to the Wisconsin Tobacco Quit Line.
5. Arrange for follow up.

If time does not permit a full-scale intervention (involving counseling and medications), you can still dramatically increase the patient’s chances of making a successful quit attempt by making an abbreviated intervention. This intervention includes referring smokers to the Quit Line. This works particularly well if the clinician links the referral to the Quit Line to one of the six FDA-approved pharmacotherapies to help smokers quit.

“An intervention takes around 30 seconds,” says Dr. Pierce Sherrill of Aurora Healthcare, who refers his patients to the Quit Line.

To access the Clinical Practice Guideline: Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence on the National Library of Medicine site, click here.

Quit Line Hours		Integrating the Quit Line Into Your Care
The Fax to Quit Program		What Patients Can Expect When They Call
Give Us Your Feedback		Positive Impact for Wisconsin Residents
Quit Line Video & Materials		Printable Handouts about the Quit Line
		List of Tobacco Cessation Programs by County