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Purpose: To test the association between repeated clinical smoking cessation support and long-term cessation., Design: Retrospective, observational cohort study using structured and free-text data from electronic health records., Setting: Six diverse health systems in the United States., Participants: Patients aged ≥18 years who were smokers in 2007 and had ≥1 primary care visit in each of the following 4 years (N = 33 691)., Measures: Primary exposure was a composite categorical variable (comprised of documentation of smoking cessation medication, counseling, or referral) classifying the proportions of visits for which patients received any cessation assistance (<25% (reference), 25%-49%, 50%-74%, and ≥75% of visits). The dependent variable was long-term quit (LTQ; yes/no), defined as no indication of being a current smoker for ≥365 days following a visit where nonsmoker or former smoker was indicated., Analysis: Mixed effects logistic regression analysis adjusted for age, sex, race, and comorbidities, with robust standard error estimation to account for within site correlation., Results: Overall, 20% of the cohort achieved LTQ status. Patients with ≥75% of visits with any assistance had almost 3 times the odds of achieving LTQ status compared to those with <25% visits with assistance (odds ratio = 2.84; 95% confidence interval: 1.50-5.37). Results were similar for specific assistance types., Conclusions: These findings provide support for the importance of repeated assistance at primary care visits to increase long-term smoking cessation.

Objectives: Comparative effectiveness research (CER) requires the capture and analysis of data from disparate sources, often from a variety of institutions with diverse electronic health record (EHR) implementations. In this paper we describe the CER Hub, a web-based informatics platform for developing and conducting research studies that combine comprehensive electronic clinical data from multiple health care organizations., Methods: The CER Hub platform implements a data processing pipeline that employs informatics standards for data representation and web-based tools for developing study-specific data processing applications, providing standardized access to the patient-centric electronic health record (EHR) across organizations., Results: The CER Hub is being used to conduct two CER studies utilizing data from six geographically distributed and demographically diverse health systems. These foundational studies address the effectiveness of medications for controlling asthma and the effectiveness of smoking cessation services delivered in primary care., Discussion: The CER Hub includes four key capabilities: the ability to process and analyze both free-text and coded clinical data in the EHR; a data processing environment supported by distributed data and study governance processes; a clinical data-interchange format for facilitating standardized extraction of clinical data from EHRs; and a library of shareable clinical data processing applications., Conclusion: CER requires coordinated and scalable methods for extracting, aggregating, and analyzing complex, multi-institutional clinical data. By offering a range of informatics tools integrated into a framework for conducting studies using EHR data, the CER Hub provides a solution to the challenges of multi-institutional research using electronic medical record data., (Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.)

Objectives: Physicians can help patients quit smoking using the 5 As of smoking cessation. This study aimed to (1) identify the proportion of known smokers that receive smoking cessation services in the course of routine clinical practice; (2) describe demographic and comorbidity characteristics of patients receiving the 5 As in these systems; and (3) evaluate differences in performance of the 5 As across health systems, gender, and age categories., Study Design: Electronic medical records of 200 current smokers from 6 unique health systems (N = 1200) were randomly selected from 2006 to 2010. Primary care encounter progress notes were hand coded for occurrences of the 5 As., Methods: Bivariate comparisons of delivery of the 3 smoking-cessation services by site, gender, and age category were analyzed using χ² tests., Results: About 50% of smokers were advised to quit smoking, 39% were assessed for their readiness to quit, and 54% received some type of assistance to help them quit smoking. Only 2% had a documented plan for follow-up regarding their quitting efforts (arrange). Significant differences were found among sites for documentation of receiving the 5 As and between age groups receiving assistance with quitting. There was no statistically significant difference between genders in receipt of the 5 As., Conclusions: Documentation of adherence to the 5 As varied by site and some demographics. Adjustments to protocols for addressing cessation and readiness to quit may be warranted. Health systems could apply the methodology described in this paper to assess their own performance, and then use that as a basis to guide improvement initiatives.