Electronic data review, client reminders, and expanded clinic hours for improving cervical cancer screening rates after COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns: a multi-component quality improvement program

  1. Sue Ghosh  Is a corresponding author
  2. Jackie Fantes
  3. Karin Leschly
  4. Julio Mazul
  5. Rebecca B Perkins
  1. East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, United States
  2. Boston University, United States

Abstract

Objective:

To improve cervical cancer screening (CCS) rates, the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center (EBNHC) implemented a Quality Improvement (QI) initiative from March to August 2021.

Methods:

Staff training was provided. A 21-provider team validated overdue CCS indicated by electronic medical record data. To improve screening, CCS-only sessions were created during regular clinic hours (n=5) and weekends/evenings (n=8). Patients were surveyed on their experience.

Results:

6126 charts were reviewed. Of the list of overdue patients, outreach was performed to 1375 patients to schedule the 13 sessions. A total of 459 (33%) of patients completed screening, 622 (45%) could not be reached, and 203 (15%) canceled or missed appointments. The proportion of total active patients who were up to date with CCS increased from 68% in March to 73% in August 2021. Survey results indicated high patient satisfaction, and only 42% of patients would have scheduled CCS without outreach.

Conclusions:

The creation of a validated patient chart list and extra clinical sessions devoted entirely to CCS improved up-to-date CCS rates. However, high rates of unsuccessful outreach and cancelations limited sustainability. This information can be used by other community health centers to optimize clinical workflows for CCS.

Funding:

All funding was internal from EBNHC Adult Medicine, Family Medicine, and Women's Health Departments.

Data availability

Source data for figures attached to submission

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Sue Ghosh

    East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, East Boston, United States
    For correspondence
    ghoshs@ebnhc.org
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8227-3576
  2. Jackie Fantes

    East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, East Boston, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Karin Leschly

    East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, East Boston, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Julio Mazul

    East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, East Boston, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Rebecca B Perkins

    Boston University, Boston, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

No external funding

Ethics

Human subjects: Reporting of aggregate data and operational details from this quality improvement project was approved by the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center Chief Medical and Chief Quality Officers.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Eduardo L Franco, McGill University, Canada

Version history

  1. Received: December 21, 2022
  2. Preprint posted: January 22, 2023 (view preprint)
  3. Accepted: August 13, 2023
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: August 22, 2023 (version 1)
  5. Version of Record published: August 31, 2023 (version 2)

Copyright

© 2023, Ghosh et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Sue Ghosh
  2. Jackie Fantes
  3. Karin Leschly
  4. Julio Mazul
  5. Rebecca B Perkins
(2023)
Electronic data review, client reminders, and expanded clinic hours for improving cervical cancer screening rates after COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns: a multi-component quality improvement program
eLife 12:e85724.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85724

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