Incorporation of E-Cigarette Use

The interest for the mini-tobacco grant is that we can propose a trial incorporation to include electronic cigarette use in the EHR to provide healthcare providers with the ability to intervene and address this relatively new tobacco linked product in a standardized format. This would be especially ideal for asking in youths and adolescents. We will coordinate the inclusion of e-cigarette use as part of the questioning for tobacco use at our outpatient office by working with the information technology manager. The addition will only need to be implemented as part of additional modification to the current EHR, thus costs will be minimal as all EHRs within the office will have the updated template incorporated. In addition to the EHR template for tobacco use, the newly added e-cigarette use will have the following if the patient is found to use e-cigarette use: -onset of first use -cartridges use per day -additional activities/context of e-cigarette use as a free text option -selection level for determination of cessation (not interested, at some point but not within the next month, or within the next month or less) Goals will be determined successful if documentation of e-cigarette is found to be carried out by the providers with each patient encounter at the equivalent rate or better than tobacco questioning is performed. In patients found to be using e-cigarettes they will be asked if they have any questions or concerns regarding usage, and if there is anything additional the medical provider could answer at this time or the next. Goal achievement could be measured via survey response with satisfied versus not satisfied regarding e-cigarette discussion with the provider. Regarding our third goal, the satisfaction with incorporating e-cigarette questioning can be anonymously gathered from the medical providers, and whether or not they would support permanent incorporation of e-cigarette documentation into the EHR. Success would be determined by the majority of medical providers desiring incorporation.