Seedlabs

Full-Spectrum Nicotine Intake Screener

A quick survey that tracks all types of nicotine use, including vapes and pouches, for medical records.

A 30-second pre-visit questionnaire that screens for cigarettes, vapes, nicotine pouches, and secondhand exposure — not just smoking — and writes product-specific results into the EHR with an automatic cessation referral.

MedicineCardiovascular Health and Risk Factors
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity DisorderPrimary care and integrated health systems — modernized nicotine screening and cessation referral at intake

Concept

Most EHR tobacco fields still ask a single cigarette-era question, so a daily vaper or a nicotine-pouch user registers as a "non-tobacco user" — invisible to cardiovascular risk assessment and never offered cessation. The Full-Spectrum Nicotine Intake Screener is a ~30-second pre-visit questionnaire (tablet or patient portal) that asks product-by-product questions — cigarettes, e-cigarettes/vapes, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco — plus secondhand smoke and aerosol exposure at home and work. Responses write structured, product-specific codes into the existing EHR tobacco-use field, fire a cardiovascular-risk flag for the clinician, and generate an automatic cessation referral (in-house program or digital vendor) whenever regular use is reported. The single wedge: ending the systematic under-detection of non-cigarette nicotine use and exposure in routine care, so the risk the AHA now counts gets counted in the clinic.

Why now

The 2026 Update expands its tobacco chapter into a full "tobacco and nicotine use and exposure" chapter [0] — an explicit signal that the leading U.S. cardiovascular statistics body now tracks the whole nicotine product landscape and passive exposure, not just cigarette smoking, as core cardiovascular risk factors. Clinics that screen only for cigarettes are therefore missing exactly the exposures the AHA now measures, and the report's annual refresh cadence gives the screener a built-in content-update rhythm as the product landscape keeps changing.

Written by GLM · 8 Oct 2026

AI assessment

Backed by 1 paper92

A pragmatic, low-friction clinical tool that aligns EHR data collection with updated AHA cardiovascular risk guidelines to capture under-reported nicotine use.

Evidence strength
5/5
The idea directly implements the specific changes in the 2026 AHA Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics update, moving from 'smoking' to 'nicotine use and exposure'.
Market pull
4/5
Health systems have strong incentives for accurate risk stratification and meeting quality metrics for cessation referrals, though integration into legacy EHRs can be a hurdle.
Novelty & moat
4/5
While intake forms exist, the specific alignment with the 2026 AHA guidelines to capture non-cigarette nicotine and passive exposure fills a distinct gap in current clinical practice.
Feasibility
5/5
The product is a simple digital questionnaire with structured data output, requiring minimal technical complexity to build a prototype.
Wedge clarity
5/5
The wedge is extremely sharp: updating the 'tobacco' field to 'nicotine' to prevent the systematic under-detection of vapers and pouch users.
Simplicity / focus
5/5
The idea avoids 'platform' creep, focusing solely on a specific intake module and a corresponding EHR trigger.

Scored by Gemma 4 · 8 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.

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Who benefits

  • Kaiser Permanentecompany

    Runs one of the country's largest tobacco-cessation programs inside an integrated EHR; a product-level screen for vapes and pouches lets it find nicotine users its cigarette-era question misses and route them to cessation services it already pays for.

  • Truth Initiativeorganization

    The leading U.S. nonprofit focused on tobacco and vaping prevention; the screener gives it a clinical deployment channel and structured data on non-cigarette nicotine use among young adults.

  • Pelagocompany

    Virtual clinic for nicotine and substance-use care; automatic referrals from the screener feed its cessation programs with users who would otherwise be recorded as non-users.

  • American Lung Associationorganization

    Long-standing cessation advocate; could deploy the screener through community clinics and quitlines to modernize how nicotine use is captured nationwide.

Research it builds on

  1. 2026 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics: A Report of US and Global Data From the American Heart Association
    Latha P Palaniappan, Norrina B. Allen, Zaid Almarzooq et al. · 2026 · 223 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
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feasibility