In spite of these gains, there was almost no change in the rates of patients who actually followed through and completed their screenings.
“Once cancer screening is ordered, the patient still has to take several steps to complete it,” Patel explained. “That includes scheduling an appointment, sometimes conducting prep — such as bowel prep for a colonoscopy — and then going to the appointment. These several steps can add up to high hurdles, especially if patients have lower motivation to begin with. Future interventions should test ways to nudge patients to complete cancer screenings.”
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That’s exactly what Patel is working on now, developing a new study to test nudges for both parties while also attempting to eliminate or alleviate some of the hurdles to completing screenings.
And while the study only focused on two specific types of cancer, these nudges have a wider potential.
“Since EHRs are used by more than 90 percent of physicians, this is a really scalable approach,” Patel said. “It is likely that it could be successful for other types of screening.”
Other authors on this study included Shivan J. Mehta, Dylan S. Small, Charles A.I. Rareshide, Christopher K. Snider, and Susan C. Day.
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