Awareness, Interest, and Preferences of Primary Care Providers in Using Point-of-Care Cancer Screening Technology

Abstract

Well-developed point-of-care (POC) cancer screening tools have the potential to provide better cancer care to patients in both developed and developing countries. However, new medical technology will not be adopted by medical providers unless it addresses a population’s existing needs and end-users’ preferences. The goals of our study were to assess primary care providers’ level of awareness, interest, and preferences in using POC cancer screening technology in their practice and to provide guidelines to biomedical engineers for future POC technology development. A total of 350 primary care providers completed a one-time self-administered online survey, which took approximately 10 minutes to complete. A $50 Amazon gift card was given as an honorarium for the first 100 respondents to encourage participation. The description of POC cancer screening technology was provided in the beginning of the survey to ensure all participants had a basic understanding of what constitutes POC technology. More than half of the participants (57%) stated that they heard of the term “POC technology” for the first time when they took the survey. However, almost all of the participants (97%) stated they were either “very interested” (68%) or “somewhat interested” (29%) in using POC cancer screening technology in their practice. Demographic characteristics such as the length of being in the practice of medicine, the percentage of patients on Medicaid, and the average number of patients per day were not shown to be associated with the level of interest in using POC. These data show that there is a great interest in POC cancer screening technology utilization among this population of primary care providers and vast room for future investigations to further understand the interest and preferences in using POC cancer technology in practice. Ensuring that the benefits of new technology outweigh the costs will maximize the likelihood it will be used by medical providers and patients.

Truscreen Detection of Cervical Tissues for High-Risk Human Papillomavirus-Infected Women During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Currently, the COVID-19 outbreak offers an opportunity to use these technologies [20]. TruScreen (TS01) is a portable instrument that uses optical and electrical signals to analyze cervical tissues with a built-in algorithm in real time [21,22]. The operation process of TS01 takes approximately 1-2 min, during which the operator places the tip of the hand piece on the cervix and pushes a button to obtain the result.…”

Clinician practices, knowledge, and attitudes regarding primary human papillomavirus testing for cervical cancer screening: A mixed-methods study in Indiana

“…Questionnaire items addressed in this paper are included in the supplementary files . A literature search was conducted for other surveys of clinician perspectives on cervical cancer screening, and adaptations of previously validated survey items ( Townsend et al, 2014 , Kim et al, 2016 , Trope et al, 2009 , Roland et al, 2013 , Katz et al, 2017 , Mao et al, 2017 ) were used whenever possible. In the absence of validated items, the investigator-generated questions were developed with two iterations of survey drafts, tested among a group of clinicians in the sampling frame population, and pilot tested for clarity, clinical accuracy, and to ensure that the items were measuring the intended concept.…”

Leveraging COVID-era innovation for cervical cancer screening: Clinician awareness and attitudes toward self-sampling and rapid testing for HPV detection

“…The self-reported questionnaire included items about demographic characteristics, professional information, POC testing, self-sampling, and self-testing for HPV detection, among other topics as part of a larger study about cervical cancer screening. A literature search was conducted for other surveys of clinician perspectives on cervical cancer screening, and adaptations of previously validated survey items [25][26][27][28][29][30] were used whenever possible. In the absence of validated items, the investigator-generated questions were developed with two iterations of survey drafts tested among a group of clinicians in the sampling frame population and pilot tested for clarity, clinical accuracy, and to ensure that the items were measuring the intended concept.…”