Since May 31, 2009, tobacco use at all Samaritan Health Services (SHS) clinics, hospitals and facilities has been prohibited – a healthy step in the right direction.

“Undoubtedly, smoking takes a serious toll on our health,” said Samaritan Family Medicine Resident Clinic physician Dr. Peter Reed, DO. “But it also has significant, unintended side effects in terms of workplace productivity and economic cost.” Reed helped lead an extensive study measuring the effectiveness of Samaritan’s tobacco-free policy alongside SHS Chief Medical Officer Kevin Ewanchyna, MD, and Jana Kay Slater, PhD, director of the SHS Center for Health Research and Quality.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tobacco related costs exceeded $158 million in 2005 throughout Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties combined. Employers are left to cover a large portion of that burden. Approximately 35 minutes per workday, or 18 days per year, are lost due to smoking rituals. Not to mention smokers have higher health insurance costs and greater risk of workplace accidents in comparison to non-smokers.

Since instituting the tobacco-free policy in 2009, the results have been impressive.

“The policy itself is quite clear,” said Reed. “Tobacco use, including all forms of smokeless tobacco, is prohibited by all patients, employees and visitors of SHS.”

For the 80 percent of Oregon smokers currently struggling to quit, SHS provides a variety of resources to assist in the process. Samaritan providers have received extensive training to help patients quit, toolkits with tobacco cessation programs and other information are available for visitors at each hospital, and a variety of free treatment programs and support groups are offered for employees who decide to quit.

The team’s comparison of survey results before and after the tobacco-free policy implementation revealed that, over the course of one year, 18 percent of employee smokers quit. Smokeless tobacco use also declined by approximately one percent. Nearly 25 percent of employees who successfully quit attributed their action to the tobacco-free policy.

Of the 1,650 employees surveyed, more than 80 percent were supportive of the policy, including a majority of smokers. “Overall, employees and patients are happy with our results,” said Reed. “But there’s still room for improvement in terms of enforcement and education regarding the policy.”