Association Between Clinician Confidence and Making Guideline-Recommended Decisions in the Management of Abnormal Cervical Cancer Screening Results.

Background: Guidelines for managing abnormal cervical cancer screening results are complex and adherence is challenging for clinicians. Previous studies have identified gaps in knowledge as a possible cause; few have explored the confidence clinicians have in their management decisions. Confidence in decision-making may influence management practices, particularly when guidelines are complex and evolving.

Primary Care Practitioner Perceptions on the Follow-up of Abnormal Cancer Screening Test Results.

Importance: Health care systems focus on delivering routine cancer screening to eligible individuals, yet little is known about the perceptions of primary care practitioners (PCPs) about barriers to timely follow-up of abnormal results.

Objective: To describe PCP perceptions about factors associated with the follow-up of abnormal breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancer screening test results.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Survey study of PCPs from 3 primary care practice networks in New England between February and October 2020, prior to participating in a randomized clinical trial to improve follow-up of abnormal cancer screening test results.

Natural Language Processing to Identify Abnormal Breast, Lung, and Cervical Cancer Screening Test Results from Unstructured Reports to Support Timely Follow-up.

Cancer screening and timely follow-up of abnormal results can reduce mortality. One barrier to follow-up is the failure to identify abnormal results. While EHRs have coded results for certain tests, cancer screening results are often stored in free-text reports, which limit capabilities for automated decision support.