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Doctors order screening tests to help with early detection of diseases in patients who they know are at risk of that disease, either because of family history or other factors such as age, gender or lifestyle. Established guidelines for screening can be found from the Alberta Screening and Prevention program. Early detection of disease is important because early treatment can reduce long term complications and improve outcomes and overall quality of care for patients.

Screening rates are an important measure of quality of care. The percentage of eligible Albertans (i.e., those most likely to benefit from the test) who receive screening tests is affected by the actions of both doctors and patients. Doctors must offer screening to their patients, and patients must follow-through by going to the lab (e.g., for diabetes and lipid screening) or making and attending an appointment for certain types of tests (e.g., mammogram for breast cancer screening or colonoscopy for colorectal cancer screening).

• The information shows the percentage of patients who completed a screening test, not how many were offered a screening test.
• There are many factors that affect the rate of completed screening tests. This includes how often doctors offer the screening tests, patient acceptability and willingness to follow-through with a screening test, and availability of certain screening tests in some areas of the province.

The FIT (Fecal Immunochemical Test) is the recommended method of colorectal cancer screening for most patients. It is a lab test done on a sample of the patient’s stool. Some patients may be screened using a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy which are procedures that allows healthcare providers to look inside the patient’s intestines for disease. The current guidelines used in Alberta for colorectal cancer screening are available here: https://actt.albertadoctors.org/CPGs/Lists/CPGDocumentList/colorectal-cancer-screening-guideline.pdf.

The Health Quality Council of Alberta uses the Alberta Quality Matrix for Health as a way of organizing information and thinking around the complexity of the healthcare system. This measure can be used as input to assess primary healthcare’s performance in these dimensions of quality: Acceptability, Appropriateness, Effectiveness, and Safety.

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