Organizing Your Office to Facilitate Preventing AEP
| Activity | Strategies |
|---|---|
| Screening | Include alcohol screening questions on initial patient questionnaires or instruct medical assistants to assess alcohol use while assessing vital signs during initial patient intake. |
| Assessment | Construct a questionnaire or checklist for the nurse to perform the assessment if screening is positive prior to the physician seeing the patient or construct a checklist that the physician can use if initial screening questions are positive while visiting with the patient in the examination room |
| Education (on alcohol and contraceptive practices) | The clinic nurse can provide alcohol-exposed pregnancy (AEP) prevention education during preconception counseling visits, contraceptive initiation visits, or pregnancy education visits. Posters and brochures on AEP can be placed in waiting rooms and examination rooms. |
| Brief interventions | Nurses can be trained to conduct brief interventions and follow-up visits can be conducted by telephone. Brief intervention materials can be kept in the examination rooms for physicians to use. |