Lake Medical Imaging (LMI), a fully integrated diagnostic imaging service provider based in The Villages, Florida, received the 2022 Radiology Business Management Association PaRADigm: RAD Honors-Innovation Award with the help of Ambry’s CARE Program.

LMI is a Leader in Mammography

LMI has been a leader in mammography for more than 50 years and in personalized mammography since 2000. In addition to breast MRI services, LMI offers automated breast ultrasound, contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM, SenoBright), contrast-enhanced guided breast biopsy (Serena Bright), and same-day results to patients. By combining these technologies and its tireless commitment to patient care, LMI has one of the highest breast cancer detection rate per 1,000 in the Southeastern U.S., as reported by the ACR National Mammography Database.

Enhancing Cancer Screening Through the CARE Program.

With a focus on technology advancement and value-based medicine, LMI wanted to incorporate inherited cancer risk assessments to personalize its cancer screening program further. This is important because it’s estimated that 80 percent of women with a family history of breast cancer who meet medical criteria do not receive genetic testing. To provide more people access to appropriate cancer risk assessment and genetic testing, LMI used Ambry Genetics’s CARE Program, which leverages a digital platform that makes it easy for clinicians to provide cancer risk assessment and education on genetic testing, as well as facilitate test ordering, result reporting and access to genetic counselors.

The mammography sites that make up the LMI Network are busy places—together, they produce approximately 240 mammograms per day. When the network needed to incorporate a new process into its workflow, it was essential for LMI and Ambry to collaborate closely to ensure that all parties were on the same page. To accomplish this feat, they worked together to streamline messaging that focused on patient and familial benefit, low cost, and ease of use for the patient.

As LMI came closer to rolling out the CARE Program at their six facilities, Ambry came out in force to train a multidisciplinary team who worked in all facets of the CARE Program and patient care.

The Program Launches in Six LMI Locations

Patients who had a mammography visit in six LMI locations were contacted a week before their appointment. They were offered a risk assessment through an easy-to-use digital platform based on National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines and the TC risk model. If the patient met the NCCN criteria for genetic testing, the patient’s process and cost were explained. If she decided to proceed, her blood was drawn at her mammogram. The genetic test results and the TC risk model were shared with the patient and physician and were used to inform further health care planning.

LMI Achieves Strong Results with the CARE Program

After implementing the program, LMI saw a nearly five-fold improvement in identifying high-risk patients and used this information to personalize cancer risk management plans for their patients.

In the first 12 months of its CARE program across all six sites, Lake Medical Imaging successfully screened over 23,000 patients and identified more than 25 percent of that group as having met NCCN criteria for genetic testing for potential hereditary cancer risk. Of that group, more than 2,000 patients proceeded with genetic testing, and over 90 patients were identified as having an inherited pathogenic variant or mutation linked with increased cancer risk.

The results from the first round of the pilot program are stunning:

• 73% Patient Engagement with over 23,000 patients completing the digital assessment.
• 28% (6,624 patients) met NCCN genetic testing criteria for hereditary cancer risk.
• 6% positivity rate for a hereditary cancer variant.
• 4% of patients had a Tyrer-Cuzick score of greater than 20.

While the Lake Medical Imaging-CARE Program collaboration has improved the quality and patient experience in women’s healthcare, they are also looking forward to expanding the program to include men’s imaging. Receiving the 2022 PaRADigm: RAD Honors-Innovation Award reinforces LMI’s commitment to saving lives in the future.