Louisville Health Care Providers Commit to Smoke-Free Campuses by January 1, 2008
For More Information: (502) 641-5461 or (502) 550-7398
Watch how Norton Healthcare plans to execute its smoke-free initiative.
LOUISVILLE , KY. (May 11, 2007): Louisville ’s health care providers today committed to establishing completely smoke-free campuses by no later than Jan. 1, 2008. The smoke-free campuses will apply to all interior and exterior areas on the health care systems’ nearly 140 locations, including 13 hospitals, in metro Louisville and Southern Indiana .
In a news conference held this morning, the providers announced their plans to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke for employees, patients, family members, caregivers and guests by eliminating all exterior designated smoking areas; health care providers have maintained smoke-free interior areas since 1992. Today’s announcement was made by officials of Norton Healthcare, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare (JHSMH), Baptist Hospital East and Baptist Hospital Northeast, University of Louisville Health Sciences Center, UofL Health Care, and Kindred Healthcare.
The smoke-free campuses/facilities will apply to the providers’ hospitals, outpatient centers, medical office buildings, physician offices, urgent care centers, laboratories, classrooms, clinics, offices and other owned and leased facilities. Collectively, the providers have some 32,000 employees and volunteers, thousands of physicians and medical students, more than 2.6 million annual patient visits, and hundreds of thousands of visitors to their campuses each year.
The smoke-free campus dates announced were June 4, 2007 (Norton Healthcare); Oct. 1, 2007 (JHSMH and Baptist Hospital East); and Jan. 1, 2008 (UofL Health Care, Baptist Hospital Northeast and Kindred Healthcare). The UofL Health Sciences Center will continue to educate employees, students and visitors about its smoke-free campus policy established in 2004.
In today’s announcement, the providers emphasized their leadership role in addressing the many negative effects of smoking, Kentucky ’s most preventable health problem. The state has the highest smoking rate in the United States at 29 percent, compared with the national average of 21 percent. The state’s incidence and death rates for cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and other cancer-related diseases far exceed the national averages. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, more than 430,000 Americans – including 8,000 Kentuckians – die each year as a result of tobacco use, and secondhand smoke kills more than 50,000 nonsmokers each year.
The providers said that “the scientific evidence is very clear that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. As the providers that treat the onerous health effects of smoking, we view it as our obligation and our opportunity to ensure that no one is subject to breathing secondhand smoke while visiting any of our health care campuses and facilities. We are creating a healthier environment for the hundreds of thousands of patients, employees, caregivers and visitors who come to our campuses each year. We recognize that smoking is a difficult addiction, so we are taking a leadership position to help change the longstanding culture of high tobacco use in Kentucky .”
The providers all have developed enhanced efforts to help their employees and community members quit smoking, including smoking cessation classes, nicotine-replacement therapy products, behavior modification drugs and other means. The Louisville health care organizations are part of a growing national trend for health care providers to maintain smoke-free facilities and campuses.
Norton Healthcare
For more than a century, Norton Healthcare’s faith heritage has guided its mission to provide quality health care to all those served. Today, Norton Healthcare is the Louisville area’s leading hospital and health care system (45 percent market share) and second largest private employer, and for two consecutive years has been ranked as one of the Top 25 Best Places to Work in Kentucky. The not-for-profit system – the largest in Kentucky and rated one of the top 100 integrated health care delivery systems in the country – includes four large hospitals in Louisville, eight Norton Immediate Care Centers, 9,500 employees, more than 280 employed medical providers at some 50 locations, and nearly 2,000 total physicians on its medical staff.Norton Healthcare serves the Greater Louisville metro area, including Southern Indiana, and patients throughout Kentucky .
Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s HealthCare
Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare (JHSMH) is a regional health care network that includes 70 health care facilities and 1,900 patient beds in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. The merger of Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services and CARITAS Health Services to form JHSMH combines the strength and honors the heritages of the two organizations to provide a complete array of health care services to this region and beyond, including hospitals, outpatient care, nursing home care, occupational health, psychiatric care and rehab medicine. JHSMH provides home health care to families in 41 Kentucky and Southern Indiana counties, occupational health mobile services to 30 Kentucky counties, and employs a network of physician practices that provide both primary and specialty medical care. The organization employs more than 8,100 people.
Baptist Hospital East & Baptist Hospital Northeast
Baptist Hospital East, located in St. Matthews, has been named one of the Top 25 Best Places to Work in Kentucky and also one of the nation's 100 Top Hospitals. The hospital's wide range of health care offerings includes cancer services, with a freestanding Radiation Center and Baptist East's Cancer Resource Center. Other special services include women's health, offering all-private maternity rooms, mammography, ultrasound and bone-density scanning for osteoporosis. Area residents also benefit from the hospital's emergency services, including the Chest Pain Unit and Pediatric Emergency Care. Other areas of expertise include orthopaedics, neurosciences, vascular services, cardiovascular services, behavioral health, rehabilitation, sleep disorders, palliative care, occupational health and in-home care provided by Baptist Hospital East Home Health Agency.
Baptist Hospital Northeast is a 120-bed hospital in LaGrange , Ky. It is one of the few hospitals in the country with acute, skilled, hospice and long-term acute care in one facility. Services include emergency, general medical and surgical, women's health (all-private maternity rooms, nursery, mammography and bone density testing for osteoporosis), diagnostic imaging (MRI, multi-slice CT scans, X-ray, nuclear medicine and diagnostic ultrasound), rehabilitation services and sports medicine and ambulatory care.
University of Louisville Health Sciences Center
The University of Louisville Health Sciences Center encompasses the schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing and public health and information sciences. The academic medical center’s mission is creating the knowledge to heal through education, research and public service. Its faculty, residents, fellows and students provide leading-edge clinical care in partnership with University Hospital, the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare and Norton Healthcare. UofL has the fastest growth rate of research funding from the National Institutes of Health of any public institution in the nation. The Health Sciences Center is also home to 17 Centers and Institutes focused on basic and clinical research to improve the lives of people everywhere.
UofL Health Care
University Hospital, the James Graham Brown Cancer Center and University Physicians' Associates are all part of UofL Health Care, the region's leading academic, research, and teaching medical center. All UofL Health Care services are associated with the University of Louisville Health Sciences Center. The Brown Cancer Center is also affiliated with the Kentucky Cancer Program and the National Cancer Institute. It is the only cancer center in the region to use a unified approach to cancer care, with multidisciplinary teams of physicians working together to guide patients through diagnosis, treatment and recovery. University Hospital ’s Stroke Center operates as part of the Emergency Department. The Center is designated a primary stroke center by the Joint Commission — the first hospital in the state of Kentucky to have this designation, joining the ranks of more than 200 primary stroke centers nationwide.
Kindred Healthcare
Kindred Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE: KND) is a Fortune 500 health care services company, based in Louisville, with annualized revenues of $4.3 billion that provides services in more than 500 locations in 39 states. Kindred through its subsidiaries operates long-term acute care hospitals, skilled nursing centers, institutional pharmacies and a contract rehabilitation services business, Peoplefirst Rehabilitation Services, across the United States. Kindred’s 55,000 employees are committed to providing high quality patient care and outstanding customer service to become the most trusted and respected provider of health care services in every community the company serves.
# # #
