an experience of qualified preventive screening: shiraz smart screening software

background: computerized preventive screening software is a cost effective intervention tool to address non-communicable chronic diseases. shiraz smart screening software (ssss) was developed as an innovative tool for qualified screening. it allows simultaneous smart screening of several high-burden chronic diseases and supports reminder notification functionality. the extent in which ssss affects screening quality is also described. methods: following software development, preventive screening and annual health examinations of 261 school staff (medical school of shiraz, iran) was carried out in a software-assisted manner. to evaluate the quality of the software-assisted screening, we used quasi-experimental study design and determined coverage, irregular attendance and inappropriateness proportions in relation with the manual and software-assisted screening as well as the corresponding number of requested tests. results: in manual screening method, 27% of employees were covered (with 94% irregular attendance) while by software-assisted screening, the coverage proportion was 79% (attendance status will clear after the specified time). the frequency of inappropriate screening test requests, before the software implementation, was 41.37% for fasting plasma glucose, 41.37% for lipid profile, 0.84% for occult blood, 0.19% for flexible sigmoidoscopy/colonoscopy, 35.29% for pap smear, 19.20% for mammography and 11.2% for prostate specific antigen. all of the above were corrected by the software application. in total, 366 manual screening and 334 software-assisted screening tests were requested. conclusion: ssss is an innovative tool to improve the quality of preventive screening plans in terms of increased screening coverage, reduction in inappropriateness and the total number of requested tests.