People remember to maintain their car on a schedule and have every little rattle looked at.

Thursday, April 06, 2000

People remember to maintain their car on a schedule and have every little rattle looked at. Austin Medical Center hopes to have people take the same quality care of their bodies as their cars.

In 1998, a team led by AMC’s Rajeev Chaudhry, a doctor of internal medicine at the medical center, embarked upon a program called "90 by 2000." The goal of this program was to have a rate of all preventative services hit 90 percent by the end of 2000 – that is, 90 percent of all adults being offered services and accepted.

"We have made significant progress with this program," Chaudhry said.

On average, preventative services such as immunizations for influenza and pneumococcal viruses, as well as screening for breast, colon and cervical cancer, are up at the medical center, Chaudhry said.

"When we started this project, our preventative service rates were quite dismal," he said. Dismal, because no concerted effort was being made to inform the public of their options in preventative care. "We’ve made significant progress, especially in the area of immunization, where we’re very close to 90 percent."

In looking at overall services, in fact, Chaudhry said the medical center has gone from about 70 percent of adult patients being provided with the full spectrum of preventative care, to about 85 percent. Taking it to the next level is as much a factor of involving patients as providers.

"We would like to have everyone up to date on preventative services. Many times, patients don’t come to their doctor, or refuse preventative care, or only come in to urgent care," Chaudhry explained. "We have used many different tools to work on this."

One such tool is a brochure, which a nurse goes over with the patient while waiting for the doctor. It not only lists ways to avoid injury, but also lists all the kinds of preventative screening a patient should have and how often. By filling out a short questionnaire, patients and doctors can see how up to date they are on their preventative care.

The brochure has been so successful, many clinics in the Mayo Health System have adopted it in modified forms. The idea for the project originated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, so Chaudhry gives full credit to them, but the whole team has been called upon to present their methods and rates of success at national forums. Chaudhry said other facilities are interested in boosting their rates of preventative care, and are following the Mayo example.

"People know they need to get their car in for an oil change every 3,000 miles," he said. There are schedules for getting your body in to the doctor as well. For instance, women over 40 should have a mammogram every year. Men older than 50 should have colon cancer screening every five years.

Jill Petersen is a registered nurse at the medical center, and also is the coordinator for disease management. She is responsible for seeing that 30 random charts are pulled monthly to see whether those patients were offered and received preventative screenings and immunizations.

Petersen said the staff at the medical center has definitely seen increased awareness because of the program.

"We share a booth with (Mower County) Public Health at the county fair, and we have women come up and tell us they get screenings because of this," she said.