Increasing Cancer Screening: Provider Reminder and Recall Systems

Research Gaps

What are Research Gaps?

Prior to and during the literature review and data analysis, the review team and the Community Preventive Services Task Force attempt to address the key questions of what interventions work, for whom, under what conditions, and at what cost. Lack of sufficient information often leaves one or more of these questions unanswered. The Community Guide refers to these as "research gaps." Research gaps can be pulled together in the form of a basic set of questions to inform a research agenda for those in the field.  

Identified Research Gaps

Effectiveness

Effectiveness of provider reminders for increasing cancer screening by mammography, Pap tests, FOBT, and flexible sigmoidoscopy is established. Additional studies will be necessary to determine whether provider reminders are also effective in promoting screening colonoscopy. It is also not known whether benefits and cost savings can be achieved by provider reminder systems when used to promote multiple preventive services simultaneously.

Applicability

• What contextual or population prevalence factors help to explain the reduced impact of reminders on mammography in more recent studies compared to older studies?

Other positive and negative effects

• How can provider reminder systems that encourage use of cancer screening services be adapted for other preventive healthcare services?

Economic evaluations

• How are the costs and cost-effectiveness of these interventions related to the structural characteristics of the settings of interventions?
• In particular, can HMOs address logistical problems (e.g., contacting providers and reducing administrative time) more efficiently than fee-for-service practices, thereby lowering costs and improving cost-effectiveness?