​Community Guide Use
Whidbey General Hospital used tobacco interventions from The Guide to Community Preventive Services (The Community Guide) to achieve a tobacco quit rate of 35-40% in one year.  Click the PDF icon to download the full text of this Community Guide success story.

1. Increasing Tobacco Use Cessation: Reducing Client Out-of-Pocket Costs for Cessation Therapies: In 2004, the hospital began offering free tobacco cessation classes and provided vouchers at the end of the classes for two weeks of free Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) patches. In 2010, the vouchers were expanded to include NRT gum as an alternative for those who cannot use NRT patches.
2. Increasing Tobacco Use Cessation: Multi-component Interventions that Include Telephone Support: In February 2006, Whidbey General Hospital developed an in-patient system to identify those who have used tobacco in the last year, and provided short interventions and made follow-up phone calls to those who expressed interest in resources for quitting. The hospital developed a similar system for Emergency Department patients in 2008.
3. Decreasing Tobacco Use Among Workers: Smoke-Free Policies to Reduce Tobacco Use: In October 2010, the hospital, including its outlying clinics and offices, became tobacco-free. The same resources offered to the community were available to employees, patients, and visitors to create a single, consistent message: the importance of tobacco cessation on overall community health.  The resources offered were tobacco cessation groups, client educational materials and activities, telephone-based cessation support, counseling and assistance from healthcare providers, and access to effective pharmacologic therapies. Becoming a tobacco-free campus was preceded by one year of planning, which entailed a multidisciplinary committee developing policy, training, publicity, and implementation processes.
4. In 2006, Whidbey General Hospital began community outreach efforts, presenting tobacco prevention and cessation messages to school groups, nursing students, return to work classes, health fairs, juvenile detention groups, jail inmates, and drug rehabilitation groups.  Information and support sessions are offered to the community seven months a year.  The free resources offered are the Washington State Quitline, National Quitline, American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and local tobacco cessation classes and information/support sessions.