Change to Cervical Screening Start Age: Primary Care/PHO Update January 2020 This update informs you and the wider primary care sector about the steps that are being taken to implement the new screening start age. Thank you in advance for sharing this with your colleagues.
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Primary Care Practice Management System (PMS) changes NCSP Media Campaign and Sector toolkit NCSP resource updates Queries
Primary Care Practice Management System (PMS) changes All PMS vendors completed the necessary system updates during November to commence the rollout of the age change. The changes to the PMS systems were made to implement the following policy: • Women under 25 years of age who are not currently in the programme are no longer invited for screening. • Women under 25 who have already been screened, should continue to be screened according to the current pathway. As noted in the August and December updates, the exception to the above policy is the: • Women under 25 that had, at that time, received an invitation from primary care but not yet screened would remain on the recall list. The rationale for this is that: • The management of women on the recall list varies between practices and it is appropriate that the practices continue to manage women in this group on a case-by-case basis. • The implementation of PMS updates requires a universal systems approach and cannot be readily adapted to account for individual patient records. The Ministry recommends that these women be recalled for screening at 25 years, unless there is a clinical rationale for someone to commence screening earlier. Practices should discuss the age change with women who are under 25 that remain on the recall list. If Medtech is your PMS vendor, your practice should have completed the standard manual process required to activate the system update. All practices would have received instructions for this process in a November communication from Medtech. To locate these instructions please log on to the Medtech customer portal and find the instructions in the Knowledge Base. You can also utilise the Chat Bot if you have questions regarding this release. If you do notice any errors or issues, please touch base with your PMS Vendor and they can assist you directly. PMS vendors contact details are: MyPractice: 09 303 1806 or email helpdesk@mypractice.co.nz BestPractice: 0800 40 1111 or email support@bpsoftware.net IntraHealth: 0508 300 900 or email support@intrahealth.com Indici: 0800 25 30 25 or email Indicisupport@platformplus.co.nz Medtech: For Medtech32 and Evolution, you will need to log on to the customer portal via https://insight.medtechglobal.com/ - and you can discuss with Sara, their Virtual Support Chat Bot.
NCSP Media campaign and Sector toolkit - coming soon! A new national media campaign is launching at the end of February to raise awareness, educate and engage young women on the importance of cervical screening. The campaign will run from 24th February until the end of May and will target all women aged 25 to 29 years of age, with a primary focus on engaging Māori and Pasifika women. The campaign will feature on digital, social media and outdoor media channels nationwide, and will drive young women to a new, bespoke landing page on the Time to Screen website. The web page has been tailored with fresh informative video content and supportive tools to empower young women and support them to participate in screening. A sector toolkit has been developed to support providers to share and leverage the campaign. • •
Phase1 of the toolkit will be shared with you in early February. It will provide background, key messages, best practice guidelines, PR advice and more to help communications staff and providers to start planning their local campaign promotion early. Phase 2 of the toolkit will be rolled out nearer the campaign launch and feature the campaign assets and links.
To make sure you receive a copy of the toolkit you can email us at ncsp@health.govt.nz. Look out for more info coming your way soon!
NCSP resource updates The NCSP team have updated our printed and digital resources to reflect the change to the age range and these are now available to order from HealthEd. We remind you to review your own communication materials (e.g. web pages, letters, posters) to ensure that any reference to the screening start age change has been updated.
Queries Project web page: Includes links to key documents, previous updates and FAQs related to the change to the screening start age. This page is regularly updated and can be found on the NSU website: https://www.nsu.govt.nz/health-professionals/national-cervical-screening-programme/agerange-change-cervical-screening Queries: If you have any queries or feedback regarding this upcoming programme change, please contact ncsp@health.govt.nz, including the title AGE CHANGE PROJECT in the subject line.