Practical Applications of the New Joint Commission Tobacco Standards – Revenue and Clinical Opportunities for Tobacco Specialists and Hospital Administrators

Mr. Bars has been engaged in the treatment, management, and administration of nicotine addiction services since 1980. In 1994, he was retained as an expert consultant to the federal class action Castano tobacco litigation. This hallmark litigation resulted in the 300 billion dollar, 46 State Attorneys General Master Settlement Agreement. Mr. Bars has also been called to testify before the FDA and other governmental entities concerning various tobacco topics. He was an adjunct faculty member of the Addictions Certification Program of Bergen County College teaching Nicotine Dependence Theory and Clinical Practice and has functioned as a consultant to various pharmaceutical, medical diagnostics, and healthcare organizations. Mr. Bars is also the co-developer and Clinical Director of the Tobacco Treatment Program of the New York City Fire Department and is the Chairman of the Policy & Governmental Affairs Committee of the Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence (ATTUD). He also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Smoking Cessation. Since December 2006, he has been retained by the American College of Chest Physicians as a principal author for their Tobacco Treatment Toolkit –an on-line training and consultation document for pulmonologists and other clinicians worldwide. In addition, Mr. Bars and his pulmonologist colleague Victor Marchione, MD, FCCP have created an organization (IQuit Smoking Centers of Excellence) to help physicians, hospitals, and medical centers establish profitable and clinically successful tobacco treatment programs. He and Dr. Marchione currently treat the tobacco dependent at Jersey City Medical Center, Jersey City, NJ.

Audrey Darville is an Assistant Professor of Nursing and a Family Nurse Practitioner. She is the Tobacco Treatment Specialist with the University of Kentucky Health Care System, counseling and treating inpatients, outpatients, and employees for tobacco use cessation. She has recently completed a PhD, with a research interest in tobacco cessation in medically ill smokers. She also works with the Tobacco Policy Research Group at the University Of Kentucky College Of Nursing and is currently the secretary of ATTUD.

Michael Fiore, University of Wisconsin Hilldale Professor of Medicine, founded and has served as Director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI) since it was established in 1992. Fiore served as chair of the panels that produced the United States Public Health Service (PHS) Clinical Practice Guidelines: Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence in 1996, 2000, and 2008. Dr. Fiore chaired the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Subcommittee on Tobacco Cessation of the Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health that produced a comprehensive plan for promoting tobacco cessation in the United States. In 2005, Dr. Fiore was asked by the United States Justice Department as part of their landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry to craft a $130 billion, 25-year plan to assist 33 million smokers to quit. During his long and distinguished medical and public health career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he has served as Principal Investigator on five consecutive NIH Center grants and was an inaugural recipient of a National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award (R35) in 2015. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In 2012, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly, Institute of Medicine).

Dr. Chris Kotsen is a certified tobacco treatment specialist and a licensed clinical psychologist, who is on the Medical and Dental Staff at Somerset Medical Center’s Lung Cancer Institute at the Steeplechase Cancer Center, where he runs the Tobacco Dependency Treatment Program. The Tobacco Quitcenter program provides individual/group biopsychosocial treatment services to medical inpatients, outpatients, and corporate worksites. He also maintains a small private practice conducting psychotherapy with individuals, couples, and families for patients with addictions/mental health problems.

Steven Schroeder, MD, is Distinguished Professor of Health and Healthcare at the University of California San Francisco, where he directs the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center (SCLC). A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, he trained in internal medicine at Harvard and in epidemiology at the CDC. He held faculty positions at Harvard and George Washington University. Between 1990 and 2002 he was President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where he initiated programs in tobacco control that resulted in $500 million in grant expenditures during his tenure. The SCLC, which he founded in 2003, works with professional societies, federal and state organizations, and advocacy groups to both increase the number of smokers who attempt to quit and increase the probability of a successful quit. It has partnered with over 80 organizations, launched the “Ask, Advise, Refer (to a quitline)” alternative for busy clinicians, developed the blue card for 1 - 800-QUIT NOW (over 5 million now in circulation), broadened the range of clinicians involved in smoking cessation, and helped to focus more attention on the lethal combination of smoking and behavioral health conditions. A member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly IOM), he chaired the American Legacy Foundation Board of Directors (now Truth Initiative), and served on the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine for 19 years.

Dr. Michael Steinberg is Professor and Chief in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Medical Director of the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies. His ongoing efforts include NCI-funded research on tobacco use behaviors, treatment, and physician communication regarding e-cigarettes. He also coordinates the 11 New Jersey tobacco Quitcenters, is project lead for the NCI C3I tobacco initiative at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and directs the Screen NJ Lung Cancer Screening program.