July 2012 Tobacco Prevention and Cessation

Smoke-Free Lake County Tobacco Prevention & Cessation Coalition News Wo r k i n g t o p r o v i d e h e a l t h i e r, s m o ke ‐ f r e e , t o b a c c o ‐ f r e e e nv i r o n m e n t s fo r w o r ke r s a n d p a t ro n s o f b u s i n e s s e s i n L a ke C o u n t y, I n d i a n a Community Update ‐ Volume 2 ‐ Issue I ‐ 2012

New Indiana Tobacco Laws July 1, 2012

Is your business ready?

Are you employees ready?

We can help.

Lake County Indiana Tobacco Prevention & Cessation Coalition Standing: Reverend Ray Ishman, Jackie Feldpauson, Mrs. Sharon Ishman, Tameka Burnett, Sandra Cotton, Nora Cheek and Eric Evans, Seated: Holly Horan, Irene Boone-Phillips, Cynthia Sampson, Program Manager, Rachel Back - Regional Coordinator, and Cynthia Rivas

Become A Preferred Provider The free Quit Now Preferred Provider Program: developed by Indiana Prevention & Cessation gives health care providers proven, professional resources to help clients kick their addiction to tobacco. As a Preferred Health Care Provider with the Quit Now Referral Network you will receive exclusive tobacco cessation services and materials, including: Fax Referral Privileges to the Indiana Tobacco Quitline: which offers specially trained Quit Coaches to develop individualize quit plans for people who are ready to quit.

Referral Kit, which includes: Fax referral forms, Indiana Tobacco Quitline brochures, Tobacco resource guide with pharmacotherapy chart, and insurance reimbursement codes. You will also receive tobacco cessation counseling materials.

Status Reports on fax referred patients: letting you know whether or not the patient was reached, enrolled in services and planned a quit date.

With ten years of hard work under their belts, the Lake County Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Coalition group has a lot to celebrate.

A lot less people in Indiana are smoking, and more and more workplaces and businesses are becoming smoke-free. Even though a state law has been passed, effective July 1, 2012,

Immediate access to professional evidence-based resources and ongoing communications: on the latest research, tobacco news in Indiana and resources available to Preferred Providers.

Direct access to tobacco cessation specialists: for additional advice and consultation.

there is still plenty of work for them to do as many of our fellow Hoosiers continue to smoke and hurt not only their own health, but the health of others around them.

Thank you for your hard work Lake County!

Your clients look to you for direction about their individual health issues. Your help and guidance can give them the power to curb their tobacco addition. For clients who are ready to quit using tobacco, fax referring them to the Indiana Tobacco Quitline is the right first step http://www.in.gov/quitline for more information on becoming a Preferred Provider and/or Employer!

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Geminus Corporation Supports New Indiana Tobacco Laws Sanford R. Kauffman, President, Geminus Corporation

We learned lessons along the way that now need to apply as we address health issues beyond smoking.

First, we learned that our fear of the discomfort and disruption of change was much worse than the reality. This change was not easy for employees our staff who smoked, but we lost few, if any, employees because of it. Customer complaints have been surprisingly few.

Second, we learned that taking incremental steps is better than taking no action at all to address major health risks. Our first step was to move smoking outside our buildings. When we found smokers regularly gathered as close as possible to external doors in winter causing smoke to come back in the building, the next step was providing a special smoking shelter away from our building that soon was known as “the butt hut.” What we created was a new security risk so that too is gone.

Sanford R. Kauffman

Today in every location where Geminus provides services those facilities Geminus is responsible for are smoke free. In locations where Geminus owns or leases entire buildings we extend our smoke free environment to the grounds around our facilities.

Our business has always been related to healthcare and services for children and families so promoting wellness and health by making sure no one in our facilities is exposed to second hand tobacco smoke is congruent with that organization mission.

Getting Geminus to this place didn’t happen overnight. It’s taken an incremental process for us as it has for many organizations. We were concerned about risking alienating customers and also valued employees by restricting their right to smoke.

Looking back we now ask why it took us so long.

The face was we did it incrementally because we didn’t want to offend our customers and employees We understand this is the same reason many businesses still are hesitant to embrace a smoke free standard for facilities utilized by the public.

Third, we learned that offering access to affordable help to quit smoking gives some employees extra incentive needed to once again go through the difficult process of quitting. Some indeed tried once again to quit and once again failed. Quitting smoking is not easy but it is also not impossible.

Fourth, we learned it feels good as an employer to know we today walk our talk more consistently about valuing our employees’ health by expecting smoke-free behavior while at work.

At Geminus, we know our pursuit of better health for our employees and our customers cannot stop at limiting tobacco exposure risk. We struggle to keep our health insurance costs affordable, so need to find better ways together with our employees to promote wellness. Our challenge today is to find ways to apply the learning above to the much bigger challenge of partnering with our employees and the families we serve to find better ways to value our own health enough to change behaviors that lead to healthcare costs that are increasingly unaffordable.

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ECONOMIC BENEFITS IF ALL STATES PASSED COMPREHENSIVE SMOKE-FREE WORKPLACE LAWS 65,300 adults would quit smoking in Indiana 1,030,000 adults would quit smoking nationwide 27,300 youths would never start smoking in Indiana 398,700 youths would never start smoking nationwide 40,600 reduction in smoking related deaths in Indiana 624,000 reduction in smoking related deaths nationwide $19,540,000 lung cancer treatment savings in Indiana $316,110,000 lung cancer treatment savings nationwide $54,810,000 heart attack and stroke treatment savings in Indiana $875,670,000 heart attack and stroke treatment savings nationwide

Lake County Tobacco Prevention & Cessation Coalition Cynthia Sampson Program Coordinator 219.757.1836 Geminus Corporation 8400 Louisiana Street, Merrillville, Indiana 46410

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8400 Louisiana Street Merrillville, Indiana 46410 219.757.1800 Sanford R. Kauffman, President Geminus Corporation Heather McCarthy, Vice-President Prevention Services Cynthia Sampson, Program Coordinator Lake County Tobacco Prevention & Cessation

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email: info@geminus.org

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Smoke Free Lake County Indiana Tobacco/Smoking Cessation News Published by

Geminus Corporate Communications CONNECT. COLLABORATE. CREATE. REPEAT.

Barbara J. Markle

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Managing Editor