P1222 - "Open Table" Approach for Colonoscopy Direct Patient Self Scheduling via Patient Portal: A Pilot Program

Award: Outstanding Research Award in the Practice Management Category

Award: Presidential Poster Award

Seth A. Gross, MD¹, Gary Kalkut, ¹, Mark Pochapin, MD, FACG¹, Lucas Saland, ², Arielle Nagler, MD^1
1NYU Langone Health, New York, NY; ²Horace Greeley High School, New York, NY

Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the US. Colonoscopy is the gold standard test for CRC screening. Barriers to CRC screening include bowel cleanse, sedation, and missed time from work. Another limiting factor is a practice requiring a consultation pre-colonoscopy, which is often not reimbursed. Furthermore, long hold times when calling the providers office may lead to the patient hanging up and delaying their exam. The aim of our pilot is to demonstrate the value of direct patient scheduling through a patient portal phone app streamlining the the colonoscopy scheduling process and increasing patient compliance.

Methods: Between November 2021-April 2023 several sites in our network participated in the program. A primary care physician (PCP) when placing the colonoscopy order would also answer a few questions to confirm the patient is “low risk” for anesthesia. The questions focused on if the patient had pulmonary or cardiac disease, BMI level, and blood thinner status. The patient would then receive a text message to schedule their procedure via the Epic patient portal, MyChart, phone app (figure 1).

Results: A total of 12 gastroenterologist templates were part of the program. A total 3158 colonoscopy orders were placed with 1567 (50%) exams scheduled. In this group, 1279 (41%) exams were completed. Only 4 patients did not show up for exam. Prior to this workflow in the “traditional workflow” a PCP would place a GI order followed by GI consultation and finally colonoscopy. Direct patient scheduling had a 6 month colonoscopy completion rate of 47.3% compared to “traditional workflow” of 34.4%. This 12% difference was statistically significant with a p-value of < 0.0001. The mean time to colonoscopy was just over 8 weeks in direct patient scheduling group compared to the "traditional workflow" group of greater than 6 months.

Discussion: There are practices that offer open access colonoscopy scheduling, where the patient would call the office. Our health system, often had a pre-colonoscopy consultation creating another inconvenient barrier for CRC screening by colonoscopy. Our low anesthesia risk patient pilot allowed for a patient to directly schedule their colonoscopy through their patient portal phone app leading to both higher colonoscopy procedure scheduling and exam completion. Future directions will include all GI providers participating in the program and also expanding into higher risk patients to have this colonoscopy scheduling option.



Disclosures:


Seth A. Gross, MD¹, Gary Kalkut, ¹, Mark Pochapin, MD, FACG¹, Lucas Saland, ², Arielle Nagler, MD¹. P1222 - "Open Table" Approach for Colonoscopy Direct Patient Self Scheduling via Patient Portal: A Pilot Program, ACG 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting Abstracts. Vancouver, BC, Canada: American College of Gastroenterology.