Offering mammography screening services at retail healthcare locations such as pharmacies could boost women's adherence to screening guidelines, according to a new study published in Academic Radiology.
And women are interested in having access to this kind of option, the researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) found.
"The results of our study show that women do indeed want the lower cost and increased convenience of local but specialized mammographic services," wrote lead author Dr. Supriya Gupta and colleagues. "The majority of women reported an interest in undergoing screening mammography in a retail setting operated by a hospital."
Mammography compliance rates have risen over the past two decades: The percentage of U.S. women ages 40 and older who report having had a screening mammography exam in the previous two years jumped from 39.1% in 1987 to 75.4% in 2010, Gupta's team wrote. While this is good news, socioeconomic disparity in mammography screening rates still exists, with many researchers finding that out-of-pocket costs (such as travel, childcare, and parking), inconvenient location, and lack of awareness about the benefits of getting screened prevent more women from undergoing the exam (Academic Radiology, October 2012, Vol. 19:10, pp. 1268-1272).
Gupta, along with at team that included Dr. Sanjay Saini, vice chairman for health system affairs at MGH, explored whether providing screening mammography in places where women regularly shop could mitigate those factors and boost the adherence rate.
"The concept of retail screening mammography is to target as many women as possible, and to offer them a place to have the exam done at their convenience, instead of going to a tertiary care center," Gupta told AuntMinnie.com.
The idea has gained traction over the years. Gupta's group cited research that found that retail clinics have grown from 60 in 2006 to about 1,112 in 2009, and that patients have responded favorably to retail clinics, with ratings of 90% satisfaction in the areas of quality of care, convenience, and cost.
For this study, Gupta's team distributed self-administered surveys to 400 women who were waiting to undergo screening mammography between May and June 2009. All of the women who were asked to participate were eligible for screening. Three hundred eighty-six screening-eligible women filled out and returned the survey.
The survey included a question on whether the study participant would be interested in undergoing screening mammography in a private area operated by the tertiary care center within a retail health clinic in a shopping mall close to the subject's home. The survey informed the women that physicians at the same tertiary care center would interpret the mammograms, giving them the convenient option of undergoing their annual breast screening exams during a regular shopping experience, Gupta's team wrote.
In all, 310 (80.3%) of the women had college or postgraduate educations, 203 (52.6%) reported annual incomes of more than $60,000, 240 (62.4%) had been undergoing screening mammography for more than 10 years, and eight (2%) reported they were having their first exam.
More than half of the patients expressed interest in having annual screening mammography in a private area within a retail shopping facility, while 77% preferred a pharmacy over a department or grocery store. Ninety percent of study participants cited proximity to home as an appealing factor about retail settings, 62% cited free parking, and 49% cited flexible operating hours.
Are there downsides to this kind of care model? Perhaps, Gupta told AuntMinnie.com.
"The biggest [concerns women expressed were] privacy and the safety of using electronic methods for transferring the mammography images," she said. "Some also said that the quality of the outlets might not be comparable to the quality in a dedicated tertiary care setting for mammography, and they would prefer to come to their existing centers."
