Mailing fecal immunochemical tests (FITs) to overdue patients improved the rate of colorectal cancer screening in community health centers, results of a recent randomized trial show.
Outreach by mail led to a 3.4–percentage point increase in completion of FIT, compared with clinics who did not participate in the intervention, according to results of the randomized Strategies and Opportunities to STOP Colon Cancer in Priority Populations (STOP CRC) trial.
Although that difference was statistically significant, investigators said the improvement was less than expected based on previous experience, including a pilot study showing that the strategy of mailing fecal tests boosted completion rates by 38%.
Based on that discrepancy, additional strategies may be needed to support implementation of FIT mailing programs in low-resource health centers, reported Gloria D. Coronado, PhD, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Portland, Ore., and coinvestigators.
“This work demonstrates that mailed FIT outreach programs can have clinical impact when integrated into clinical work flows, but emphasizes the need to identify additional strategies to support program implementation in low-resource health centers,” Dr. Coronado and coauthors said in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The STOP CRC study included 26 federally qualified health center clinics serving low-income populations in Oregon and California. Investigators identified a total of 41,193 adults overdue for colorectal cancer screening between Feb. 4, 2014 and Feb. 3, 2015.
The core of the intervention was a set of electronic health record–embedded tools that identified adults due for screening and allowed staff to generate letters and mailing labels for a series of three mailings. The first mailing was an introductory letter, the second was a FIT kit packet that included wordless instructions, and the third was a reminder letter.
For clinics that participated in the intervention, the rate of FIT completion was 13.9%, versus 10.4%, a difference that was statistically significant (95% confidence interval, 0.1%-6.8%; P = .047), according to investigators. Likewise, the proportion of participants completing any CRC screening was significantly higher in the intervention clinics (18.3% versus 14.5%; 3.8 percentage points difference; 95% CI, 0.6%-7.0%; P = .024).
Somewhat larger effects were seen in an analysis that accounted for delays in implementation of the program. In that analysis, FIT completion rates were 17.6% for the intervention clinics and 12.8% for the usual care clinics (95% CI, 0.9-8.6%; P = .020), with similar increases seen in the proportion of patients receiving any CRC screening.
These increases in screening occurred despite “relatively low” implementation of the program, Dr. Coronado and colleagues said.
In the pilot study, a concerted effort was made to ensure all eligible adults got the intervention; in this study, 6,925 out of 21,134 intervention participants (33%) got an introductory letter, and of those, 91% received the FIT and 59% got the reminder letter.
Implementation varied widely by health center, ranging from 6.5% to 68.2%, investigators said in their report.
One reason for low implementation may be that the program competed with other priorities in the clinics. In interviews, health center leaders said challenges in the clinic included time burden, limited organizational capacity, and challenges with the EHR and associated reporting tools.
“For most participating health centers, STOP CRC represented the first time EHR tools were used to deliver cancer screening services outside the clinic,” Dr. Coronado said. “Implementation might have increased with experience.”
The research reported by Dr. Coronado and coinvestigators was supported by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Coronado reported serving as a coinvestigator on a study of an experimental blood test for colorectal cancer funded by EpiGenomics and as principal investigator on a study of an experimental FIT funded by Quidel Corporation. No other disclosures were reported.
SOURCE: Coronado GD et al. JAMA Intern Med. 2018 Aug 6. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.3629.