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Quitting

It’s never too late to quit tobacco. Just 12 hours after you quit smoking, the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal. And after one year, your risk of coronary heart disease is half what it was when you were smoking.

Whether it’s your first try quitting or you’re ready to try again, the resources listed below will give you the best chance to quit tobacco for good!

Resources

A person wearing a headset.

For Health Care Providers

Health care providers are in a unique position to address their patient’s tobacco use and help them become smoke-free. Health care providers should advise their patients to quit because:

  • Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death
  • Tobacco users expect to be encouraged to quit by their healthcare provider
  • Healthcare providers can double the chances of successful quitting by advising their patients to quit using tobacco.
  • Quitting tobacco takes multiple attempts. Patients who understand this may be more likely to make attempts to quit.

Ask, Advise, Connect

The “Ask, Advise, Refer” program encourages all healthcare providers to:

  1. Ask every patient about tobacco use
  2. Advise patients who use tobacco to quit
  3. Connect patients who use tobacco to quit resources (see below)

Tobacco users are 30 times more likely to enroll when they are directly connected to the Quit Line, as opposed to being encouraged to call on their own.

Quit Resources

The Utah Tobacco Quit Line is a free service for both adults and youth in either English or Spanish.

Refer a patient to the Quit Line.

The Quit Line will attempt to contact the patient multiple times. The quit line will also fax your office to inform you of the services that the patient received.

We recommend you note the Quit Line referral in the patient’s medical file to facilitate a follow-up during his or her next office visit.