ASCO Quality 2022: An Education Initiative That Aims to Improve Equity in Prostate Cancer Screening

By: Gavin Calabretta, BS
Posted: Wednesday, October 12, 2022

For prostate cancer, early screening and appropriate follow-up are especially important in at-risk patients. Recently, Ginny Jacobs, PhD, MEd, MLS, of Axdev Global, Inc, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and colleagues developed a system-based Quality Improvement Education (QIE) intervention program to improve screening and referrals for patients with prostate cancer, specifically targeting higher-risk subgroups. The researchers, describing this initiative at the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Quality Care Symposium (Abstract 112), reported the QIE program increased the percentage of patients screened during the interventional phase.

The QIE intervention took place at three community-based primary care service centers. Each differed in patient capacity, staff, and preintervention screening practices, but all provided services to predominantly Black populations (72% of patients). Prior to the intervention, site representatives (n = 3) performed practice assessments, and health-care providers (n = 24) completed individual baseline surveys. The program itself lasted 12 weeks and included educational materials from the Prostate Health Education Network in addition to updated clinic-specific screening protocols. Postintervention evaluations were based on qualitative interviews (n = 5) and feedback from the QIE coaches.

According to the researchers, the intervention raised awareness of the access barriers faced by patients from diverse communities and increased awareness among team members regarding the need for earlier screening and diligent follow-up in at-risk patient groups. Prior to the program, 53% of patients underwent screening, which increased to 69% during its course. More specifically, the screening rate among Black patients increased from 51% to 68% and from 59% to 72% in White patients. Of note, however, the increase in total patient screening was not sustained, and the rate returned to 53% after the program was over. The authors mentioned that this limited sustainability could have been partially due to the intervention’s brevity, reliance on retrospective data, and inability to fully leverage electronic health record data.

Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit asco.org.

2022 ASCO Quality Care Symposium

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