The Tobacco Cessation Center at Southern Tier Health Care System, Inc. has been engaged in many activities both state-wide and locally. These activities have made the Cessation Center at STHCS a leader in developing policies and programs that have and will continue to help reduce the impact of tobacco use in Southwestern New York.

There are 19 cessation centers that blanket every New York State county. Our primary mission is to aid practicing clinicians in the implementation of the Public Health Service (PHS) Clinical Practice Guideline for Tobacco Use Cessation. We often work with hospitals, large provider groups and physician offices to implement a systems change towards addressing patient tobacco use at every clinical visit. All eight hospitals in our catchment area of Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Allegany and Wyoming counties have agreed to implement the PHS Clinical Practice Guidelines for Tobacco Use Cessation, to varying degrees. STHCS’ Tobacco Cessation Center also works with health-care facilities to encourage the adoption of smoke-free campus policies to address relapse prevention and any transient exposures to second-hand smoke.

The Cessation Center at STHCS has also contributed to helping a number of other area agencies with their smoking cessation programs for employees, customers and visitors through various educational programs and outreach activities. These programs have been executed through partnerships with the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, Strong Ties Pharmacy Program (Rochester), The NYS Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, The American Academy of Respiratory Care, SUNY Upstate Medical University (Syracuse) and the University of Buffalo’s School of Pharmacy and School of Medicine and Biological Sciences. Continuing medical education credits have been offered to many health care providers during these trainings. To date, over 300 health care providers, work-site wellness and human resource personnel have been educated on various topics related to tobacco cessation.

Our Center continues to be a leader on state-wide initiatives as well. STHCS is the lead sponsor of CME accreditation for our bi-monthly cessation education conference calls that are available to practitioners across the state. Additionally, through an extended partnership with the University of Buffalo we have created a performance improvement CME program that will allow physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners receive 20 CME credit hours for year-long participation in the program. A pilot study is currently under way with the STHCS cessation center taking the lead. State-wide roll-out of the program began in October 2007.

For more information about smoking cessation, please contact us by EMAIL or call our Cessation Coordinator at 372-0614.