Physician Tips: A practical guide for screening patients for excessive alcohol use

For Fibronostics

Primary care and specialists are always being reminded to screen for risky or abusive behaviors ranging from tobacco, alcohol and drugs, domestic abuse, sexual behaviors and on and on.

As a practical matter, however, primary care physicians have only 15 minutes allotted for any given office visit, most often not enough time to address the problem the patient made the appoint for in the first place. (published site)

Using an extensive screening tool for many practices is just not possible. Lack of time is one of the primary complaints physicians voice when surveyed about their screening practices for risky behaviors.

With that in mind, the American Academy of Family Physicians has developed a practical guide for addressing alcohol use, much of it aims at prompting your patients who may be having a problem to ask. The approach requires involving your entire staff to develop a screening and brief intervention (SBI) culture in your practice.

Here are 7 practical things you can do to encourage patients to engage in a discussion about alcohol use:

• Place visual cues, such as posters and brochures, throughout the office to encourage “knowing your limits” and “discussing alcohol use with your physician.”
• Educating all staff on an ongoing basis, by offering training (e.g., lectures, workshops, in-service) on alcohol SBI and providing continuing education (CE) credits and other incentives for participation.
• Select one or more persons in your practice to act as an alcohol SBI office champion(s). The champion(s) should be charged with recommending and implementing system changes to integrate alcohol SBI into your practice’s daily office routines.
• Provide self-help materials that educate patients about liver and other health damage due to alcohol
• Charts that help patients self-identify their alcohol consumption
• Provide resources for support and help for patients and family members who may be dealing with alcohol problems.
• Seize on teachable moments when discussion of alcohol is natural and appropriate such as new patient visits, annual physicals, prenatal visits, problem-oriented visits that may indicate risky alcohol use, such as GERD complaint, peptic ulcer, hypertension or diabetes evaluation.

The practice guide essentially creates a new patient flowchart that helps providers identify opportunities to expose patients to alcohol SBI messages and offer adequate support from staff.

Fibronostics is committed to helping healthcare professionals to continually work to improve their practices while adhering to evidence-based principles, and allowing for the influence of their own medical judgment. We ​leverage the benefits of technology to improve lives, and deliver high-quality, life-improving disease education, evaluation and monitoring. For more information contact us via email, or by phone at 1-888-552-1603.

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