Patients are untapped resource for improving care
A study looking at over 21,000 patients from 11 health centers in the USA has found that patients who receive mailed reminders for scheduling colorectal cancer screenings are more likely to comply than those who don’t.
At least 44% of patients who received a reminder in the mail were screened, versus 38% who did not—an effect that increased with age.
However, electronic reminders targeting physicians yielded no significant increase.
“We had a large group of people who needed to be screened for a very important condition. If we provided them with basic information about colon cancer and their need for screening, this approach was more effective than simply leaving it all up to the doctor,” says Harvard Medical School professor of medicine and health care policy John Ayanian.
These findings were published in the 23 February issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
