Elevate Your Health Colorado: Your Health Information Resource

For many women approaching age 40, life only gets busier. Juggling jobs, family responsibilities, and household chores, we find little time for ourselves. Even potentially life-saving measures, such as regular mammograms, sometimes get overlooked.

Jean Redd, 48, a radiology supervisor at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, knows this type of woman well. “We call them our MVPs, or Missing Valuable Persons,” she explains. “MVPs are a select group of women who have gone at least 24 months without having a mammogram.”

The MVP designation is part of a larger initiative to increase breast cancer screenings called Pink Promise. This program uses electronic records to track overdue patients and personal phone calls to remind these high-risk women to schedule a screening. It also posts electronic alerts, so if overdue patients seek treatment for another concern, such as an ankle sprain, the health care team can remind them again and encourage them to take advantage of walk-in mammography.

With walk-in mammography at many Kaiser Permanente locations, overdue patients can simply walk down the hall for this screening instead of coming back for another appointment. “Our MVPs get immediate access to the walk-in mammography since we know how critical it is for them to be screened,” says Karin L. Kempe, MD, director of clinical prevention in the department of population and prevention services at Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

‘Do as I say, not as I do’
Launching the MVP program was a hectic time for Redd. “One day in the ladies’ room, I happened to see Dr. Shaw, one of our fabulous radiologists. We were chatting about how busy the MVP program kept us, and that’s when I admitted I was one of them – I was an MVP,” Redd recalls. “I was so focused on helping other women, I realized I had gone nearly three years without having a mammogram myself.”

She also remembers her friend’s reaction to that statement. “I’ll never forget the look in Dr. Shaw’s eyes and her stern instruction to go immediately upstairs to get my mammogram – no stopping at my desk. She even offered to escort me,” Redd says.

‘She saved my life’
Redd did exactly that. Looking back, she now credits Dr. Shaw with saving her life. “My mammogram detected a very aggressive stage 2 breast cancer,” Redd recalls. That was back in February 2007. During the following five months, she underwent a lumpectomy, four rounds of chemotherapy, and 32 radiation treatments.

Today, Redd wants women to learn from her experience. “Not only was I too busy recruiting other noncompliant women for mammograms, I also had a family history of breast cancer and my doctors encouraged me to get annual screenings beginning at age 30,” Redd says. “I just didn’t think getting cancer would happen to me, especially at age 45. But it did, and now I want other women to know it can happen to them.”

Doctor’s advice
“Mammograms enable us to find cancer in its earliest stages – before women or their doctors can feel any changes, like a lump,” Dr. Kempe says. “The survival rate for cancer caught in its earliest stages is approximately 97 percent. There’s a huge difference in survival rates between cancers found early and those that have spread. Early detection truly is a woman’s best protection.”

Decreasing barriers
Dr. Kempe realizes some women delay having mammograms due to fear. “I want women to realize that regular mammograms can bring peace of mind. Even in the group of women who are overdue for screenings, most studies are normal, or their cancers have been caught at a curable stage,” she says.

Dr. Kempe also knows some women delay having mammograms because they fear they may hurt. “A mammogram can feel like a pinch – for about 30 seconds while the X-ray is taken. But it shouldn’t be too uncomfortable,” she says. “If women have had trouble in the past, I want them to tell our mammography staff so we can work with them to make it a more comfortable experience.”

She also realizes many women have busy schedules. “Women now have the option of making an appointment, or we can accommodate them on a walk-in basis,” she says. “At Kaiser Permanente, we now have eight convenient locations with radiology that offer walk-in mammograms.”

Seeing progress
Thanks to personal outreach to women who are overdue and walk-in mammography, Kaiser Permanente Colorado has noticed a dramatic increase in women receiving regular mammograms. A recent study from another Kaiser Permanente region found that mammography rates jumped from 63 to more than 80 percent when programs to remind women to be screened were put into place.

These rates are especially noteworthy when compared to a recent study by the National Cancer Institute, which noticed a decrease in mammography rates this past decade after rising dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, it reports that nationally only 66 percent of women age 40 and older get annual mammograms.

If the entire country’s mammography rate could reach 80 percent, it’s estimated that as many as 25,000 additional cases of breast cancer could be detected each year.

To learn more about the importance of early detection, visit KaiserPermanente.org.

Dr. Kempe received her medical degree from the University of Rochester. She completed her internship and residency at Duke University School of Medicine. 

To schedule a mammogram, if you are a Kaiser Permanente patient, please call 303-338-3456. You can also walk in to any of our mammography departments from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the days listed below:

MEDICAL OFFICE    WALK-IN DAYS
Arapahoe:                Monday, Thursday, and Friday
Baseline:                  Monday and Thursday
East:                        Wednesday and Friday
Franklin:                  Monday and Wednesday
Lakewood:               Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday
Southwest:               Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Westminster:            Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday
Wheat Ridge:            Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday