The World Health Organization recognizes Friday, May, 31, as World No Tobacco Day – the perfect time to celebrate Mayo Clinic’s participation in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Center Cessation Initiative. 

Launched in 2017 as part of the NCI Cancer Moonshot program, the long-term goal of this initiative is to help cancer centers build and implement sustainable tobacco cessation treatment programs to routinely address tobacco cessation with cancer patients.

Mayo Clinic joined this initiative in 2018 when the NCI awarded the Nicotine Dependence Center a supplement to the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center’s NCI Cancer Center Support Grant under the leadership of principal investigator David Warner, M.D. Mayo Clinic is now working with 42 other cancer centers across the nation to:

• Refine electronic medical records and clinical workflows to ensure the systematic identification and documentation of smokers and the routine delivery of evidence-based tobacco cessation treatment services
• Overcome patient, clinician, clinic, and health system barriers to providing tobacco cessation treatment services
• Achieve institutional buy-in that treating tobacco use is a component of organizational “Standard of Care”
• Create mechanisms to sustain tobacco cessation treatment services so that they continue beyond the funding period of the initiative

Armed with best practices gathered from other cancer centers, the Nicotine Dependence Center is working with care providers across Mayo Clinic to design a system for identifying tobacco users and enrolling them in cessation treatment.

To learn why it’s important for cancer patients to stop using tobacco, watch this Mayo Clinic Minute video:

Tags: cancer, David Warner, Events, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, News, tobacco cessation