A Digital Intake Tool for Colorectal Cancer Screening Programs

Project summary

In the ‘Knowledge- and Innovation agenda in healthcare’ it is stated that: ‘healthcare needs to be improved within the following three areas: prevention, translocation and substitution of health care’. This project aims to develop the first Digital Intake Tool (DIT) for Fecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) based colorectal cancer (CRC) screening programs and assesses effectiveness of the tool within a screening program. DIT can be performed at home, replacing health care from hospital to home.

Each year more than 2.2 million people between 55-75 years of age are invited for the national CRC screening program. Around 5%, corresponding to 77,000 screenees yearly, have a positive FIT and will be referred for colonoscopy. Currently screenees with a positive FIT need to be seen at an outpatient clinic before colonoscopy is carried out. Reason for this is to assess morbidity, risk of complications and inform patients about the procedure and CRC risk. Most of the screenees are healthy and have a working life. In this study we will assess if face-to-face contact can be effectively replaced by a DIT without counteracting adherence to colonoscopy, bowel cleanliness or increase patients anxiety.

This project will develop a DIT tailored for FIT positives. A DIT for CRC screening programs needs to be understandable for all people, be informative about risks and benefits and instructive. The company Informed, specialized in making animations for medical information provision to (low-literacy) patients will develop the DIT. To assess the effectiveness of the DIT for FIT-based CRC screening programs, adherence to colonoscopy, satisfaction, bowel cleanliness and anxiety of screenees will be measured.

With this project we hope to facilitate screenees and health care providers, improve capacity for outpatients visits and reduce health care costs by providing a safe and validated DIT for FIT positive screenees that can be done at home.