What Is Organized Screening and What Is Its Value?

Abstract

Most screening in the United States occurs in an opportunistic fashion, although organized screening occurs in some integrated health care systems. Organized colorectal cancer (CRC) screening consists of an explicit screening policy, defined target population, implementation team, health care team for clinical care delivery, quality assurance infrastructure, and method for identifying cancer outcomes. Implementation of an organized screening program offers opportunities to systematically assess the success of the program and develop interventions to address identified gaps in an effort to optimize CRC outcomes. There is evidence of that organized screening is associated with improvements in screening participation and CRC mortality.

Keywords: Cancer screening; Colonoscopy; Colorectal neoplasms; Mass screening; Occult blood; Patient navigation.