Improve Cervical Cancer Screening Rates
Learn from CareMessage customers on ways using CareMessage can improve Cervical Cancer screening rates and impact patients at scale.
THE PROBLEM
The Need for Increased Cervical Cancer Screenings
- There are 14,100 new cervical cancer diagnoses annually in the US and 4,280 deaths
- The overall lifetime risk of cervical cancer is 0.7%
- Cervical cancer is 20th in the US in terms of number of cancer cases annually
- FQHCs saw a COVID-related drop of 10% (5.53 pp) in cervical cancer screening
- FQHCs had 7.6M women in the denominator of the cervical cancer screening metric in 2021. Only 4M of those women were documented as being up to date with screening.
- Ethnic disparities exist; 70.29% of Hispanic women were up to date with screening as compared to 75.4% of Non-Hispanic White women
- Other disparities exist by FPL (77.8% screening for FPL >200% vs. 64.2% for FPL <200%) and education level (78.1% for education beyond high school vs. 67.1% for high school graduates vs. 59.1% for those with less than high school)
THE SOLUTION
CareMessage Supports a Variety of Approaches
PrimeCare Health in Chicago, IL
71.7% — 2021 UDS Cervical Cancer Screening rate (top 10%)
PrimeCare Health has implemented “Pap Days” as an effort to improve Cervical Cancer Screening rates for specific providers. The participating provider’s calendar is blocked for the day, and all appointments are prioritized for these screenings. PrimeCare uses CareMessage to text patients from the provider’s panel who are due for cervical cancer screenings to see if they would like to be scheduled during the upcoming pap day. Patients are asked to respond with what works best for them:.
- A- I'd like to schedule an appointment for Pap Day.
- B- I want an appointment for a different day
- C- I already had a Pap done.
When a patient answers “C”, they are moved to a different workflow and staff are notified to contact them to get their medical records updated.
Partnership Community Health Center in Appleton, WI
72.89% — 2021 UDS Cervical Cancer Screening rate (top 10)
Partnership CHC sends text messages to patients due for a Cervical Cancer screening by breaking them up into 2 groups.
- Group 1: Patients without an upcoming appointment
- Group 2: Patients with any kind of appointment scheduled.
Patients in Group 1 receive a series of 3 text messages; a notification that they are due for a Cervical Cancer screening, a reminder, and final message with multiple choice answer options, asking why there has been no response. Based on the patient's answer to the final message, they are automatically sent the appropriate follow-up.
Patients in Group 2 receive a text message reminding them of their upcoming appointment and requesting that they speak with their provider about getting a Pap smear.
"For patients in Group 1, we use the templates provided by CareMessage because they come across to patients as encouraging, not demanding, which we prefer." - Sara Cass, RN, BSN, Quality Coordinator at Partnership CHC
Mattapan Community Health Center in Boston, MA
69.54% — 2021 UDS Cervical Cancer Screening rate (top 10%)
Mattapan CHC utilizes Azara Patient Outreach messaging and leverages the CareMessage platform to send automated messages to patients with care gaps, like Cervical Cancer screenings. This eliminates the need for staff to spend additional time calling patients.
Mattapan CHC maintains a Care Gap list for their patients, and uses every interaction to discuss scheduling outstanding care needs.
“When a patient calls, they may have received the text message for a flu shot, but the staff member that answers the call will look at the Care Gap list and also schedule them for whatever other care they are missing.” - Sophonia Lucien, NP, Director of Population Health
RESOURCES
Download a guide with additional data and tips.
