Smoking cessation support in New Zealand is guided by national Smokefree and public health strategies overseen by Te Whatu Ora. General practices play a key role in identifying people who smoke and offering brief advice and support to quit.
The role of the general practice
Providing smoking brief advice is part of routine preventive care in general practice.
Practices may:
- Ask about and record smoking status
- Offer brief advice to stop smoking
- Encourage patients to consider quitting
- Offer or arrange support (including referral to external services)
- Update patient records based on new information provided
Patient participation is voluntary, and engagement should be supportive and non-judgemental.
Using recalls and automation to support smoking brief advice
With Vensa, you can automated the recall process that supports smoking brief advice.
The Vensa SBA automation:
- Runs on a scheduled basis
- Scans the PMS to identify patients who are recorded as current smokers and have not had any brief advice in the last 12 months, or patients who do not have a smoking status recorded
- Sends an automatic text message containing a secure link.
Through this link, patients can:
- Confirm or update their smoking status
- Receive brief advice
- Indicate whether they would like support to quit
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Submit their response directly to the practice.
Patient responses are written back into the PMS, helping practices keep smoking status information up to date and identify patients who may want follow-up support.
This recall automation is fully included in all TXT2Remind plans. For more information or to enable this for your clinic at no additional cost, please get in touch with support@vensa.com
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