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Tobacco-Free Policies: How to Take Action

How to take action!

SHARE REMINDERS

  • Care teams: Please discuss tobacco-free policies and cessation resources with patients and visitors.
  • All staff: Please address tobacco-free expectations with your team’s vendors and professional visitors.

SUPPORT CLEAN-UP EFFORTS

Our Facilities teams conduct daily clean-ups, including areas where smokers tend to gather. As part of our iCARE (Clean and Restful Environment) program, we ask you to take ownership and help keep the premises clean when you see trash. We welcome you to help remove tobacco trash whenever possible to support these efforts.

ADDRESS VIOLATIONS

  • UF Health Shands Security staff will conduct regular patrols of known tobacco-use areas on our properties to educate and address outdoor tobacco use with staff, patients and visitors.
  • For staff who are asked to stop tobacco use or relocate and refuse to do so, Security staff have been asked to take their names and UF Health ID badge info to share with HR.
  • We encourage you to respectfully address tobacco use with colleagues who smoke, vape or use tobacco products in unauthorized areas. Please politely remind them of our policies. (Scripts are available on the Bridge.)
  • There are serious consequences for faculty, residents, staff and volunteers who repeatedly use tobacco in prohibited areas. Supervisors will be notified and they will be held accountable by their respective UF Health Shands or UF Human Resources departments for work-rule violations.
  • If you observe staff repeatedly violating our work rules, please bring this to the attention of our UF Health Shands HR Employee Relations team at 352-265-0495. You can also request Security assistance by calling 352-265-0109.

Categories

January 2019, To Do

About the Author

Photo of Kim Rose

Kim Rose — Communications Manager, UF Health Information Technology

Kim’s been a writer and editor, managed media relations and internal communications, and led talented teams to develop strategic communications programs and campaigns. Her first love was crisis communications, and her regular, daily mantra remains: “It’s PR, not ER.” Today, she supports UF Health Information Technology as the “IT Whisperer” for the division’s 650 staff across Gainesville, Jacksonville and Central Florida. Previously, she was long-term director of Strategic Communications at UF Health and assistant director of Marketing and Public Relations for Shands HealthCare. In a past life, Kim worked as the events/festival coordinator for the City of Gainesville Division of Cultural Affairs. She has been a community volunteer and remains active with the International Association of Business Communicators.

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