Journal of general internal medicine
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There are evidence-based treatments for tobacco dependence, but inequities exist in the access to and reach of these treatments. Traditional models of tobacco treatment delivery are "reactive" and typically provide treatment only to patients who are highly motivated to quit and seek out tobacco treatment. Newer models involve "proactive" outreach, with benefits that include increasing access to tobacco treatment, prompting quit attempts among patients with low motivation, addressing health disparities, and improving population-level quit rates. ⋯ This commentary introduces a comprehensive yet flexible model of proactive outreach and describes how proactive outreach can optimize clinical research and care delivery in these domains: (1) identifying the population, (2) offering treatment, and (3) delivering treatment. Dimensions relevant to each domain are the intensity of proactive outreach (low to high) and the extent to which proactive outreach activities rely on human interaction or are facilitated by information technology (IT). Adoption of the proposed proactive outreach model could improve the precision and rigor with which tobacco cessation research and tobacco treatment programs report data, which could have a positive effect on care delivery and patient outcomes.
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The coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic continues to have an impact on health care. A potential new wave can be foreseen concerning the impact of the pandemic on medical research and literature. ⋯ This occurred at the expense of non-COVID-19-related scientific papers as most journals did not increase the total number of their published articles. Thus, our analysis may outlook a new potential scientific wave related to COVID-19, in addition to the clinical ones, possibly delaying the improvement in the quality of care for other diseases in the next years.
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Interprofessional strategies for promoting tobacco cessation lead to enhanced quit rates among patients; however, current approaches might not effectively support patients with their quit attempts after they are discharged from the hospital. This paper explores opportunities for interprofessional collaboration between health system-based providers and community pharmacists, as one proposed approach to bridging tobacco cessation services during transitions of care. ⋯ Community pharmacists can offer a convenient solution to obtain the post-discharge medication and counseling support that patients need to increase their chances of quitting for good. Additional steps are discussed to improve broadscale capacity of this service being provided in community pharmacies.