Trends in attaining mammography quality benchmarks with repeated participation in a quality measurement program: Going Beyond the Mammography Quality Standards Act to address breast cancer disparities

BACKGROUND: The Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) requires that mammography facilities conduct an audit but there are no specifications on the metrics to be measured. In a previous mammography quality improvement project, we examined whether breast cancer screening facilities could collect the data necessary to show that they met certain quality benchmarks. PURPOSE: Here we present trends from the first five years of data collection, to examine whether continued participation in this quality improvement program was associated with an increase in the number of benchmarks met for breast cancer screening. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Participating facilities across the state of Illinois (N=114) with at least two time points of data collected in (years 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011 and/or 2013) were included. Facilities provided aggregate data on screening mammograms and corresponding diagnostic follow-up information, which was used to estimate 13 measures and corresponding benchmarks for patient tracking, callback, cancer detection, loss to follow-up and timeliness of care. RESULTS: The number of facilities able to show that they met specific benchmarks increased with length of participation for many but not all measures. Trends towards meeting more benchmarks were apparent for cancer detection, timely imaging, not lost at biopsy, known minimal status (p