Special report. Smoke-free policies: what works? what doesn't?

In the December 1992 issue, we reported on the new no-smoking regulations for hospitals instituted by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). To comply with JCAHO, all hospitals must have a no-smoking plan in effect by the end of 1993. All hospitals should have already taken some steps to formulated a policy by now. Many hospitals, on their own initiative or in anticipation of JCAHO, have had no-smoking programs in effect for some time. In this report, we'll review the relative success and failure of such programs and present some evaluations by hospital officials themselves of their programs to date.