Increasing Colon Cancer Screening Rates Through Scalable, Automated Patient Outreach

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2020

As part of an organizational commitment to improve health and prevent disease in uninsured and MediCal patients in Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Department of Health Services (LA DHS), utilized existing call center technology to launch an automated telephone outreach program to increase the number patients who complete colorectal cancer screening. Over six months, LA DHS used cloud-based call center technology to telephone 9,425 patients who received home stool screening tests (called Fecal Immunochemical Tests, or “FIT kits”) from their medical provider in the prior month, but who did not return them. This automated telephone reminder health campaign was associated with a 2.5-fold increase in the number of colorectal cancer screening tests completed. This low cost, sustainable automated outreach program will be used for future health campaigns to improve health outcomes for Los Angeles County residents.