Supporting breast and cervical cancer screening follow-up: qualitative health plan interviews

BACKGROUND: Breast and cervical cancer represent a significant disease burden. Health care quality measures captured through electronic clinical data systems could be used to assess follow-up of abnormal breast and cervical cancer screening results. The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) wanted to explore the feasibility of using health plan electronic clinical data systems to develop quality measures for follow-up of abnormal breast and cervical cancer screening test results. METHODS: NCQA interviewed quality improvement leaders from ten health plans, recruited through a purposive sample representing varying sizes, geographic regions, and commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid product lines. RESULTS: Health plan leaders identified several barriers, including a lack of standardized data integration as well as opportunities such as supporting provider and health system data aggregation and other support. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that improved data governance, particularly around data standardization and information technology infrastructure integration, would increase the feasibility of monitoring follow-up after abnormal breast and cervical cancer screening results.