Congress Abstracts 2003

59

EMPLOYEE MAMMOGRAPHY INREACH PROGRAM AS A MODEL FOR EFFECTIVE BREAST CANCER SCREENING. Joanne Robinson, RN, MSPH, Rose Taibbi, RN, BSN, OCN^®, and Lori Usak, RN, BSN, North Shore–Long Island Jewish Health System, Great Neck, NY.

The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System (NSLIJHS) is a multi-hospital system with over 30,000 employees, 75% of which are female. Based on a 1999 sample survey of 100 female employees, approximately 50% of the female employees within our health system over the age of 40 were estimated to be non-compliant with having annual mammograms. In response to this finding, the NSLIJHS developed an employee in-reach program to educate employees and encourage annual mammograms.

The program is conducted via confidential mailings, which are sent to the homes of all female employees with information about national breast cancer screening guidelines and a response postcard to encourage the scheduling of a mammogram. The in-reach program is funded by a grant that covers the cost of the materials and mailings but not the mammograms, which are billed to the employee’s health insurance. Women who present for a mammogram through this special program receive a gift bag, containing products donated by the Estee Lauder Company.

At the end of the program’s first year of implementation, the initial group of 2,700 eligible female employees, age 40 and over, there were 2,235 responses (82.7%) to the mailings that yielded 1,455 scheduled mammogram appointments (54%). Of this group, 272 women never had a previous mammogram and a total of 622 were overdue for a mammogram (43%). There were a total of 40 mammograms considered positive (BIRAD 4 or 5), which, upon further diagnostic testing, resulted in 9 positive biopsies. Pathology identified four cases of intraductal breast cancer and five invasive breast cancers.

The NSLIJHS in-reach project was recently presented to the statewide group of hospital grantees for the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) Breast Cancer Demonstration Project. The program was so well received that the hospitals are planning to adopt this program, and HANYS will write letters to all New York State hospital CEOs with a tool kit based on the NSLIJHS in-reach project.

The development of an employee mammography in-reach program has been found to be an inexpensive method to effectively reach large numbers of women in the workplace for breast cancer screening.