July E-Letter
Performance Improvement is a key component of a Patient Centered Medical Home. We just completed a measure of our mammography rates. Here are the results:
Target population - women between the ages of 40-75 enrolled in our practice thru 6/30/09.
Measure of mammography data -
• Our electronic medical record.
• OSF/Susan Komen registry.
• MMCI Breast Center registry.
• Email & phone calls placed directly to patients for whom documentation was not available.
Results
73 of 90 women have documented mammograms. (73/90 =81%)
Out of the 17 women without mammograms, 4 have chosen to defer and 5 have studies scheduled. (We have been unable to contact the remaining 8).
Conclusion
Our data is very encouraging. I believe it reflects the community effort to increase education awareness, improve access (mobile units), offer financial support via grants, allow for direct patient scheduling, and the development of a community wide recall and reminder system.
Effectiveness of mammography
Like all screening tests, one must take into account the benefits/risks/cost and limitations of screening mammography. See June e-letter re similar about prostate cancer (screening).
Mammograms are uncomfortable/painful, involve radiation exposure, and may lead to additional invasive testing like biopsies, most of which will reveal non cancerous results.
The major benefit of screening is earlier detection of cancer at a less advanced stage. More conservative treatment options and an overall reduction in cancer mortality is the ultimate goal.
1800 women between ages 40 - 49 and 840 women between ages 50 - 69 need to be screened in order to decrease one cancer death over a 14 year span.
Like most screening tests, mammography is not perfect, but it is the best tool we have available today.
Prevention
Prevention of breast cancer is certainly the ideal, although genetics and hormones play a role in individual breast cancer risk. We know that life style factors play an even bigger role. An informative overview is in the New York Times article
Practice news
July marks the completion of our first 6 months in practice. We continue to add new patients mainly due to "word of mouth" support provided by our established patients.
Marilyn and I again thank you for making our first 6 months a successful adventure! Let us know about your ideas to improve our practice. We aren't "set in our ways" - yet..
By the way, the monthly e-letters are now posted on our web site: www. Junctionmedical.com , under the practice news tab.
