Revisions, improvements, and priorities
The Breathe Easy bus has been in operation for more than 2 years, performing an average of approximately 100 screenings per month, with a goal of 200. The bus continued to operate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic because many patients viewed it as a safer alternative to a hospital visit, Headrick said.
Design changes planned to improve performance of the bus include a stronger chassis and structural components, as well as swapping out the 16-slice CT unit for a specially designed 64-slice mobile unit that can be operated with an iPad and provide gated coronary calcium scores.
When challenged about whether the cost of lung cancer screening is the best use of limited resources, Headrick said, “if it’s not, then when we need to go back to the drawing board and jump-start lung cancer screening.”
“When I spent a year in 2014-2015 trying to talk to radio stations, news stations, media, nobody really cared about lung cancer screening,” he said. “But as soon as I had this shiny object, which is the bus, which we labeled as the easiest and most valuable doctor visit, people had an interest.”
The pilot study was supported by local nonprofit foundations through the CHI Memorial Foundation.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.