THE CHALLENGE:
Cervical cancer was once one of the most common causes of death for American women. In 1941, the widespread use of the Pap test changed all of that. The test can detect precancerous changes to cells in a woman’s cervix, alerting doctors to the potential for disease before it becomes widespread. It’s considered “the most significant advance in the control of cancer in the 20th century,” according to an article published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
AllianceChicago, a managed service organization located in Chicago with a national footprint that includes dozens of community health clinics and more than 7 million patients, wanted to make sure eligible women could get these potentially lifesaving screenings.
Time-consuming, labor-intensive manual processes for reaching out to patients in a geographically distributed population made it hard for AllianceChicago to achieve its goal of 93% cervical cancer screening rates. Workflow redesigns with Cedar Gate’s Care Management and Clinical Decision Support tools helped them eliminate variation across dozens of clinics and patient populations.
Time-consuming, labor-intensive manual processes for reaching out to patients in a geographically distributed population made it hard for AllianceChicago to achieve its goal of 93% cervical cancer screening rates. Workflow redesigns with Cedar Gate’s Care Management and Clinical Decision Support tools helped them eliminate variation across dozens of clinics and patient populations.
The goal for AllianceChicago was to meet or exceed the Healthy People 2020 target of 93% cervical cancer screening rates. To do that, they would need to identify eligible patients and manage outreach and coordination.
Their existing systems required team members to do a lot of that manually, which was time consuming and labor intensive. It also resulted in significant variation among their geographically distributed population. That made it harder for the organization as a whole to reach its target, leaving many women without access to cervical cancer screenings.
Additionally, the Clinical Decision Support tools gave providers and care team members alerts at the point of care for women who needed cervical cancer screening. The information was available during patient encounters so care teams could either perform the screening or help the women schedule a new appointment to get the recommended screening.
AllianceChicago saw significant improvement in workplace efficiency and program monitoring. By eliminating 18 steps from their manual workflow, clinical team members saved an average of four hours per month. The performance management system also helped the team pinpoint opportunities to improve outreach and prevention, ultimately leading to more cervical cancer screenings. Following their success, the team is looking at adding more Cedar Gate applications to surface care gaps and recommend treatment using evidence-based guidelines, helping providers improve outcomes for even more patients.
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