Abstract PO1-08-03: Using Telehealth to Establish a High Risk Cancer Prevention Clinic over a large Geographic Area

Abstract

Abstract There are health disparities in breast cancer screening based on urban, rural or frontier geographic designations. For instance, in Utah, the percentage of women who had no mammography in the last two years was 33.5% for urban, 33.8% for rural and 40.4% for frontier designations. Rural women are also diagnosed with breast cancer at later stages. Diagnosing breast cancer at earlier stages leads to improved survival, more affordable care, less toxic treatments, better quality of life and less time away from home and work. We are presenting the innovative use of telehealth to establish a High Risk Cancer Prevention Clinic to effectively reach a large geographic area and mitigate obstacles to accessing care. The clinic's mission is to identify and care for individuals with increased cancer risk due to familial, genetic and/or high risk lesions. This initiative provides centralized comprehensive evaluation, counseling and screening planning as well as referral for risk-reducing interventions closer to home. With a collaborative approach involving surgical and medical oncology, genetics, radiology and women's health specialists, the teleclinic has successfully served 280 patients since Spring 2022. Recently our health care system has increased significantly in geographic reach due to mergers with other health systems. We think this teleclinic is nimble enough and easily scalable to accommodate caring for increased numbers of patients needing this service. Citation Format: Maricel Purcell, Teresa Reading, Ginger Lee, Jennifer Tittensor, Margaret VanMeter. Using Telehealth to Establish a High Risk Cancer Prevention Clinic over a large Geographic Area [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2023 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2023 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(9 Suppl):Abstract nr PO1-08-03.