Sandra Sursock
‘Optimising the National Bowel Cancer Screening Follow-Up: Integrating Innovative Technology to Improve Cancer Outcomes ’
University of Melbourne, Vic
Awarded 2024
Co-funded by Rotary District 9650 Bowelscan PhD Scholarship
“This technology may increase efficiency of the Participant Follow Up Function team, allowing resources to be reallocated to expanding its role to include tasks like scheduling and prioritising colonoscopies. ”
Researcher Profile
Sandra Sursock is a PhD student at the University of Melbourne. She completed a Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Science Advanced (Honours) Degree in 2021 at Monash University. Following her studies, she worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in the department of Radiation Oncology. Sandra is also currently working as a Project Officer in the Department of General Practice and Primary Care at the University of Melbourne.
Through my experience, I have had the privilege of expanding my expertise across general practice and public health domains. I have become passionate about the field of public health, particularly in preventative services to reduce the incidence of cancer. I hope to continue to enhance my skills and improve health outcomes in the public health setting.
Project Summary
The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) aims to reduce the incidence, mortality and morbidity of bowel cancer in Australia. The effectiveness of the NBCSP is dependent on the completion of appropriate and timely clinical follow-up of screening results. In the most recently published statistics for the NBCSP, 11,114 people who tested positive to the NBCSP kit did not follow-up with a diagnostic colonoscopy, allowing bowel cancers to progress undetected until they reach a more advanced stage when treatment may be less effective. This severely compromises the effectiveness of the NBCSP.
The Participant Follow Up Function (PFUF) has been established to increase follow-up through telephone calls. Leveraging technologies such as conversational voice artificial intelligence (AI) could provide personalised, timely reminders and information to individuals. By automating these tasks, PFUF staff can focus their time and expertise on ensuring this can maximise the impact of the NBCSP and ultimately save lives. We believe that digital technology can overcome barriers to people getting their recommended screening follow-up and reduce the time to getting a colonoscopy. Our aim is to develop and test conversational voice AI systems to assist the screening follow-up process.
Supervisors: A/Professor Jennifer McIntosh, Professor Mark Jenkins and Dr Sibel Saya.