Inpatient Smokers and LDCT Screening RCT

Overview

Current smokers who undergo annual low dose CT (LDCT) lung cancer screening and successfully quit smoking derive the greatest reduction in lung cancer mortality. Unfortunately, those at highest risk of lung cancer death- those with low socioeconomic status, blacks, and current smokers- are the same individuals that typically have reduced access to preventive healthcare such as smoking cessation services and screening tests. Furthermore, patients from underserved communities often have lower health literacy, less awareness of lung cancer screening, and a poor understanding of the trade-offs of LDCT screening. In 2015 the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services began requiring (1) a shared decision-making (SDM) discussion including use of a patient decision aid and (2) smoking cessation counseling in order to receive reimbursement for LDCT screening. There is little guidance, however, to help healthcare systems implement this requirement. Furthermore, primary care physicians (PCPs) report time constraints, competing demands, and knowledge deficiencies as barriers to optimizing utilization of LDCT screening.

The goal of this study is to create and evaluate an intervention that capitalizes on hospitalization at an urban safety net hospital as an opportunity to connect high risk smokers to lung cancer screening and smoking cessation services. Building on the well-established inpatient tobacco dependence consult service at Boston Medical Center, the investigators will study the effect of adding a nurse-driven LDCT screening SDM intervention to inpatient smoking cessation counseling among screen-eligible hospitalized smokers. Hospitalization may be an ideal time-point for this intervention as it offers 1) a "teachable moment" for patients, when they may be particularly receptive to interventions to reduce smoking-related disease, and 2) an opportunity to offload busy PCPs of the obligation to conduct SDM for LDCT screening. In Aim 1, screen-eligible patients who are smokers will be randomized into one of the study arms (n=284, 142 per arm) to receive either inpatient 1) SDM (SDM by a thoracic oncology nurse using a decision aid) or 2) usual care and a LDCT informational brochure during inpatient smoking cessation consultation visits. In both arms the thoracic oncology nurse will counsel patients on smoking cessation. The investigators hypothesize that for screen-eligible smokers, inpatient SDM will increase (1) LDCT screening rates, (2) patient knowledge of LDCT screening, and (3) 1 month smoking quit rates compared to usual care. In Aim 2, the potential for future implementation of the intervention will be evaluated by incorporating stakeholder impressions of the intervention through qualitative interviews. By study end, an inpatient intervention will be created to promote both LDCT screening and smoking cessation among low income and minority smokers. This hybrid study will allow te investigators to establish not only the effectiveness of the intervention, but also help inform future implementation.