Drs. Nancy Schoenborn, Cynthia Boyd, and Craig Pollack had two recent publications from their national survey of physicians on decision-making in cancer screening of older adults. The project published in JAMA Network Open examined the effect of presenting different types of health information about the patient. They found that patient’s cancer risk in remaining lifetime and life expectancy were influential for physicians’ decisions to stop cancer screening, whereas information about patient’s physiologic age was less influential. This work highlights information that would be relevant to include in decision-support interventions to help reduce over-screening. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2804869
The project published in Journal of American Geriatrics Society examined acceptable thresholds to stop cancer screening reminders in the electronic medical record. This project was also recently presented at the Plenary of the American Geriatric Society annual meeting. They found that most physicians would continue EMR reminders past age 75 and when life expectancy is <10 years, suggesting limited physician buy-in for potential interventions that seek to reduce over-screening by suppressing EMR reminders. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.18412
