Louisiana historically has some of the worst cancer outcomes in the nation. It has the seventh highest mortality rate in the country, the fifth highest colorectal cancer death rate, and Black women here are more likely to die from breast cancer than the national average. We can, and must, do better.
Our Goals
We know that early detection is key, especially for breast and colorectal cancers. Not only are they easily detectable, but early diagnosis makes a major difference in treatment options and cancer outcomes. That’s why we work with our partners to increase screening rates, especially in underserved communities. Our goals include:
- Reduce mortality from breast cancer for women 40 and older
- Increase adherence to evidence-based treatment protocols for those with breast cancer
- Reduce late stage diagnosis for women 40 and older across all regions, races, and ethnic groups
- Increase CRC screening for adults aged 45-75 using evidence-based screening methods
- Reduce racial and geographic disparities in CRC screenings
- Reduce racial and geographic disparities in how quickly people enter treatment after CRC diagnosis
- Reduce mortality from colorectal cancer for adults 50 and older
And through the coordinated effort of our partners, we’ve made meaningful progress toward our goals. TACL has implemented over 90% of clinical recommendations first set by our committee in 2018 and increased colorectal cancer screening rates by an average of 6% from 2020-2021 alone.
Statewide Screening Registry
With funding secured from the Louisiana Cancer Research Center, we are developing a cancer screening registry with the goal of providing better continuity of care for Louisiana residents and boosting screening rates.
The registry will rely on Medicaid claims data to start. When managed care organizations (MCOs) in Louisiana are billed for any form of colorectal cancer screening, that screening information will be pulled into a secure registry for clinicians. With this registry, healthcare providers will have easy access to individual patients’ screening information and be better able to promote new screenings when needed.
It will help take the burden off patients who may not remember whether or when they were last screened, what type of test(s) they received, or what the results showed. And it will be especially helpful for populations served by Medicaid, who tend to switch plans more frequently and may be at greater risk of falling through the cracks when it comes to preventative care.
In the future, our goal is to expand beyond billing data into real-time data from health systems, as well as track screenings for additional cancers, like breast and lung cancers, for a more comprehensive registry.
Primary Care Practices Learning Collaborative
Most preventive screening takes place in office practices, especially primary care practices. Ensuring all office practices that perform cancer screening have reliable, evidence-based best processes in place for screening, follow-up, diagnostics, and initiation of treatment is essential for good cancer outcomes.
So, we piloted the Primary Care Practices (PCP) Learning Collaborative to do just that. We began by targeting four practices reaching more than 13,000 Medicaid recipients.
Through a combination of virtual trainings, site visits, and peer collaboration opportunities, these practices learn efficient clinical workflow processes, quality improvement methods, skills development, and much more in order to improve colorectal cancer screening rates.
The PCP Learning Collaborative is designed to complement our community health worker interventions. This way, as community health workers engage people in screening, diagnosis, and treatment, those individuals come into practices that are as efficient and effective as they can be.
And thanks to a $75,000 grant from Exact Sciences, we’re recruiting a new cohort of primary care practices to continue this essential work for the second year.