P1325 - Telephone Reminders Improve Fecal Immunochemical Test Return Rates

Jake S. Jasurda, DO¹, Reut Danieli, MD², Bradley Yamanaka, MD², Aasma Shaukat, MD^2
1University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; ²Minneapolis VA Health Care System, Minneapolis, MN

Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Long-term colorectal cancer screening has been shown to be effective in significantly reducing incidence and mortality rates of CRC in the United States. Annual screening via fecal immunochemical test (FIT) is considered to be a first-tier screening by the US Multi-Society Task Force on CRC. Our aim was to increase the percentage of screening FITs that are returned at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System (MVAHCS).

Methods: This was a prospective cohort of patients drawn from the MVAHCS Primary Care Clinic. Eligible individuals were due for routine colorectal cancer screening and had a FIT ordered between 1/7/2021 and 3/31/2021. Patients were manually identified via the VA Support Service Center Capital Assets (VSSC) database and randomized into a control group and a reminder group. The reminder group received a telephone reminder call fourteen days after a FIT was ordered. Automated collection of FIT return rates served as an additional control to manual data collection, as this is the historic FIT tracking method at the MVAHCS. Student’s t-test was used to assess for significant differences between groups.

Results: Eight hundred patients met inclusion criteria (control n=417, reminder n=383). Patients who received a telephone reminder returned FITs at a rate of 74.2% (284/383) compared to 58% (242/417) of patients who did not receive a telephone reminder (p < 0.0001). Patients who were identified via automated FIT tracking measures historically utilized by MVAHCS had a FIT return rate of 7% compared to 58% among patients who were manually identified but did not receive a telephone reminder (p < 0.0001). The average number of days until FIT return was 17 days among those who received a telephone reminder and 19 among those who did not receive a telephone reminder (p < 0.03). No predictors of FIT return were found on exploratory logistic regression analysis.

Discussion: Patients who receive telephone reminders had a 16% higher FIT return rate when compared to patients who did not receive a reminder. Patients also returned FITs sooner after receiving a telephone reminder compared to those who did not. Our findings suggest that telephone reminders can be an effective means to improve FIT return rates, but improved FIT tracking systems are needed for accurate tracking of this information.


Disclosures:


Jake S. Jasurda, DO¹, Reut Danieli, MD², Bradley Yamanaka, MD², Aasma Shaukat, MD². P1325 - Telephone Reminders Improve Fecal Immunochemical Test Return Rates, ACG 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting Abstracts. Las Vegas, Nevada: American College of Gastroenterology.