Health Care & Insurance  November 20, 2014

Centura Health to stop hiring tobacco users

Centura Health will no longer hire tobacco users as of Jan. 1, 2015, marking the latest in a movement by health care providers to enhance their tobacco-free workplace policies, the health care provider said Thursday.

In 2012, Centura Health banned smoking and tobacco use at all of its facilities. The new policy is aimed at maintaining a healthy workplace and lowering employee insurance costs and follows similar policies implemented at Baylor Health Care System in Dallas and Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, among others.

“It is important that we serve as a role model by internally promoting the benefits of health and wellness to create and sustain a healthy workforce,” Centura Health CEO Gary Campbell said in a statement. “By inspiring one and another to achieve our own level of health and wellness, we will truly optimize health care value for consumers.”

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Englewood-based Centura has 15 hospitals, including Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville; and six senior-living communities. Centura recently announced that Longmont United Hospital would become a member of its system. It has also opened wellness centers in Dacono, Westminster and Thornton.

Centura has physician practices and clinics, home care and hospice, and emergency air transport services. The health-care provider has more than 6,000 affiliated physicians and 17,100 employees in Colorado and Kansas.

The leading preventable cause of death, smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases and diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 16 million Americans suffer from a disease caused by smoking.

Under the new policy, applicants selected for a position after Jan. 1 will be tested for tobacco as part of their post-job offer screening. Applicants who test positive for tobacco use will be eliminated from consideration, but may be eligible to reapply for job opportunities at Centura Health 90 days after their last test result.

The change to Centura Health’s tobacco-free workplace policy does not apply to current employees, who can participate in wellness programs to help them quit smoking.

 

 

 

Centura Health will no longer hire tobacco users as of Jan. 1, 2015, marking the latest in a movement by health care providers to enhance their tobacco-free workplace policies, the health care provider said Thursday.

In 2012, Centura Health banned smoking and tobacco use at all of its facilities. The new policy is aimed at maintaining a healthy workplace and lowering employee insurance costs and follows similar policies implemented at Baylor Health Care System in Dallas and Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, among others.

“It is important that we serve as a role model by internally promoting the benefits of health and wellness…

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