Getting Proactive About Cancer Prevention

Posted 7/02/24 (Tue)

This summer, Mobridge Regional Hospital and Clinics is implementing a new texting and emailing service that will allow the organization to reach out to patients when they are due for cancer-related screenings and vaccinations. The new service works with the hospital's electronic medical records to identify those who could benefit from a reminder. In partnership with the South Dakota Cancer Coalition, the critical access hospital and its rural health clinics have purchased the new program and are working through implementation this month.

Each of the organization's rural health clinics, Selby Medical Clinic, Mobridge Medical Clinic, West River Health Clinic (McLaughlin), and Western Dakota Clinic (Timber Lake), offer annual exams that include a manual breast exam, pap smears, HPV vaccinations and cologuard and FOBT tests. Mammograms, colonoscopies, and lung screenings are available on-site at Mobridge Regional Hospital.

The way patients learn about the need for a screening or vaccination has developed in an ad hoc way over the years. The organization has a postcard program that sends postcards out to families with teens 11 and older who are eligible for an HPV vaccination, but coverage is spotty. The hospital's radiology department sent out 647 radiology letters last year--one to each woman who has had a mammogram in the past and is due for their next one. The new system will allow the organization to reach out to these women more efficiently as well as any women 40 years and older who are not yet in the system. When a male patient turns 45, we'll be able to send a text reminder about the importance of colonscopies and early detection. Pap smears, which guard against cervical cancer, and low-dose lung CTs, which screen for lung cancer, are also on the list of preventative services the program will address.

The text/email system will also be used to send out appointment reminders before a patient's appointment to help avoid missed appointments. "Our hope with this pilot is to be able to make the case that our appointment reminders and other proactive cancer-screening programs are worth continuing long-term," said Jodi Madison, Director of Clinic Operations. "We will be able to look at the number of early cancer detections our team has been able to make and no-show rates before and after the system implementation to identify the effects of the reminder system and other project activities."