Cervical screening reminder calls pilot: Utilizing EMRs to improve cancer screening.

Abstract

163 Background: Cancer screening detects pre-cancerous changes, or cancer at an early stage when there is a better chance of treating it successfully. Research shows that that physician encouragement improves the odds of patients getting screened. Furthermore, systematic reviews demonstrate that efforts to encourage screening can be more effective through telephone reminders when compared to other methods of outreach. Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are a powerful tool for the coordination, recording, monitoring and reporting of patient care in primary care. In Ontario, 80% of primary care providers (PCPs) have adopted EMRs within their practice. CCO developed the Cervical Screening Reminder Calls (CSRC) pilot to support PCPs in increasing their cervical cancer screening rates. The pilot consisted of two components. First, practice staff were trained to utilize their EMRs to identify eligible patients for cervical screening. Once identified, practice staff invited patients via telephone to get screened. Family Health Team’s (ANFHT) pilot implementation will be presented. Methods: Twelve primary care practices were recruited from across Ontario to participate in the four-month pilot. Each practice was assigned a CCO support person to guide them through the implementation. The practice teams completed the self-directed EMR training. They then generated lists of patients eligible for cervical screening based on CCO’s cancer screening guidelines and telephoned patients to book Pap test appointments. Results: Over the course of the pilot, 1593 (57%) of all eligible patients were reached and 71%, or 798, of them scheduled a Pap test. Overall, participating physicians saw an average 2% increase in their total cervical screening participation rates. Conclusions: From a spread and sustainability perspective, the pilot has provided valuable insights to inform future planning at CCO. The lessons learned have implications for the implementation of a broader range of quality improvement initiatives. Next steps will include the development of an implementation model that is ‘lower touch’ thus allowing for spread to a broader number of practices.