Ready to Screen: Validation of a clinical decision support system for lung cancer screening eligibility in Australia

Led by MPhil student and primary care practitioner Dr. Lucas de Mendonca and utilising clinical decision making software Future Health Today (FHT), this arm of the Ready to Screen project sought to validate an algorithm in FHT that can flag patients within primary care electronic medical records who are aged 50-70 years old who either currently smoke cigarettes (30 pack-years or more) or who have quit within the last 10 years. Additionally, the project sought to determine how many patient files identified by FHT would be eligible for lung cancer screening based on electronic medical record (EMR) data.

The project found that smoking duration is currently poorly recorded in EMR’s, with only 6.9% of potentially screening-eligible patients identified the validated algorithm due to poor data quality. This indicates that general practice will face significant challenges in identifying eligible patients without additional support.