Saturday pap smear clinic: Addressing barriers to women’s health.

Abstract

105 Background: Screening for cervical cancer with pap smears and HPV testing can improve patient outcomes by allowing for early identification of cervical cancer. The Minnesota Community Measure and Mayo Clinic's goal is to have a cervical cancer screening rate of 82% (Detailed Report-Cervical Cancer Screening, 2020). Healthy People 2030 aims to have a cervical cancer screening rate of 83.4% (Increase the proportion of females who get screened for cervical cancer -C-09, 2021). Community Internal Medicine cervical cancer screening rates are below this level at 63.09% compliance, with 5,239 patients non-compliant, who are eligible for cervical cancer screenings. Olmsted County only offers acute services on the weekends with no primary care services, which leaves women who work during the week or have childcare/caregiver issues with no options on the weekend or evenings when they have availability to attend appointments. Methods: Based on guidelines for pap smear screening (women ages 21-65), 14,195 women were identified within CIM to be eligible for screening. Of those, 5,239 were due for screening. The Saturday Pap Smear Clinic had 88 available spots. We aimed to improve cervical cancer screening rates among non-compliant women within Community Internal Medicine by 1% (52 women, total noncompliant women = 5,239) by January 2021 without adversely impacting coverage of existing clinic hours. Results: The electronic medical record (EMR), EPIC, was utilized to identify all patients who were eligible for a pap smear based on current guidelines (Total eligible = 14,195; Sample size/non-compliant: 5,239 patients) within Community Internal Medicine (CIM) of the Baldwin Building in Rochester, MN. Interventions included: surveys that were sent to patients via the Patient Portal. Advertising for the Saturday Clinic included Primary Care News, E-boards, Posters, Social Media, SCOPE, Mayo News, and Providers. The Saturday clinic allowed time outside the traditional hours. One unique feature of the clinic is that all females staffed it during clinic hours in an attempt to alleviate some of the fear/anxiety. After completion of the pilot Saturday Pap Clinic, pap smear compliance from the Saturday Pap Clinic alone arose 1.2% (62 patients) within CIM. Conclusions: Post-intervention, cervical screening rates among non-compliant women within Baldwin CIM improved by 1.2% (62 women total).