Smoking Cessation in Rural Hospitals

Our long-term goal is to improve smoking cessation treatment for rural smokers. The objective is to assess the effectiveness of a centralized disease management program for hospitalized smokers that coordinates care across treatment settings and links smokers to existing resources. Our central hypothesis is that Centralized Disease Management (CDM) will increase the use of smoking cessation treatments and lead to greater long term smoking cessation than Counseling alone. Demonstrating the effectiveness of a disease management program and identifying the critical components of such a program will provide a basis for improving the utilization of existing smoking cessation resources while enhancing the treatment of rural hospitalized smokers.