Increasing and Improving Physician Treatment for Tobacco Use is Vital to Improve Healthcare Quality

Chronic diseases, many of which are caused by a shortlist of behaviors, are the leading cause of death and disability in the US (Chronic Disease 2021). Physician interventions to address these behaviors and improve chronic disease outcomes are one important way to reduce healthcare costs, improve quality and outcomes, and reduce death and disability. Ask Advise Connect (AAC) was a care model designed to help primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants, and other providers link smokers in primary care settings with evidence-based tobacco treatment delivered via each state’s Quitline, however its use is not being maximized (Brook et al., 1996; Pineiro et al., 2020). The 2014 Surgeon General’s Report stated that tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death and disease, and that combustible tobacco causes an overwhelming percentage of the death and disease from all tobacco products (Smoking and Tobacco Use, 2020). Strategies to rapidly cut cigarette use will dramatically reduce their burden (Smoking and Tobacco Use, 2020). Due to tobacco use’s overall contribution to death and disease, increasing and improving physician treatment for tobacco use is vital to improve healthcare quality.

Using the available scientific literature as a guide to establish criteria, the AAC model was developed for physicians and tobacco users (Pineiro et al., 2020; Pineiro et al., 2019; Vidrine, Shete, Cao, et al., 2013; Vidrine, Shete…