Evaluation of a Telephone Outreach Intervention on Colonoscopy Completion Rates for Patients With Rectal Bleeding

Rectal bleeding is a common concern among primary care patients and a risk marker for colorectal cancer. Yet, primary care patients who present with rectal bleeding frequently do not complete timely colonoscopies. We sought to determine if a phone-based, scheduling intervention for patients presenting with rectal bleeding in primary care would improve the rate of scheduling and completion of ordered colonoscopies.

We conducted a nonrandomized pre-post intervention study at an urban, academic, hospital-based primary care clinic. We included patients with a colonoscopy order for rectal bleeding who had not scheduled a colonoscopy within 2 weeks of the order date. We created a baseline cohort from August to October 2022 and an intervention cohort from November 2022 to June 2023. The pilot intervention involved up-to-3 outreach phone calls by a primary care-based phone service representative to study participants.

Compared to the baseline cohort, patients in the intervention cohort had a significantly higher rate of colonoscopy completion at 365 days ( p = .04). Higher rates in loop closure were seen across demographic cohorts.

Proactive, primary care-based, outreach phone calls increased rates of completion of colonoscopies ordered for rectal bleeding.