A program driven by electronic medical records (EMR) that reminds women to schedule their yearly mammogram boosted screening compliance rates by more than 17%, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (August 2009, Vol. 37:2, pp. 94-101).
The study was conducted by lead author Dr. Adrianne Feldstein and colleagues from Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, OR. It assessed the effects of the reminder program, which consisted of identifying via EMR women soon due for a mammogram and contacting them through postcards, voice messages, and phone calls. The study included 35,000 Kaiser Permanente members.
Starting in January 2006, women who had not had a mammogram for 20 months were sent a postcard telling them that they were due for the test. If they didn't make an appointment within a month, they received their first automated reminder call. A month later, they received a second automated call, and one month after that, if they still had not made an appointment, they received a call from a clerk in the radiology department.
Within 10 months of their first reminder, more than 75% of these women had completed their mammograms, compared with 63.4% before the program. After the second year of the reminder program, 80.6% of women had completed their mammograms, according to the study.
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