Identifying eligible patients for the Australian national lung cancer screening program in primary care: A cross-sectional study using clinical decision support systems and evaluating PLCOm2012 data quality

Abstract

Primary care is pivotal in identifying eligible participants for Australia's National Lung Cancer Screening Program (NLCSP). Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) can assist by flagging potentially eligible individuals using Electronic Medical Record (EMR) data. We developed a CDSS to identify people aged 50–70 who currently or formerly smoked cigarettes (with an unknown quit date or cessation within the past 10 years) for use in Australian general practice EMRs. This study aimed to: (1) assess the algorithm's accuracy in identifying eligible patients, (2) estimate NLCSP eligibility based on audited EMR smoking data, and (3) evaluate EMR data quality for applying the PLCOm2012 risk predic..