Becker's connected with Nathan Merriman, MD, medical director of gastroenterology and digestive health at Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health, to find out what recent change at Intermountain has had the biggest effect on his practice.
Note: Response has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: What change in the last year has been the most impactful?
Dr. Nathan Merriman: Starting up our central screening colonoscopy program has been very impactful. We started it about a year and a half ago. We were continuously seeing that there were a lot of open scheduled spots on people's schedules across the Salt Lake Valley, and there were a lot of patients waiting after the backlog of COVID-19. However, the age change to 45 has led to a huge increase in patients. We wanted to make it easier for patients to schedule their screening colonoscopy online, so we started up an online form. I know some people have gone direct to scheduling — which is great — and eventually, we hope to get there as well.
We started an online form for requests for screening colonoscopy because patients actually don't need a referral, and patients have loved it. It helped with our central scheduling program, allowing patients to see availability across sites in the Salt Lake Valley and to look for open time blocks across sites, and empower them to choose which of our four sites they want to go to, and on what day and at what time, with which physician. Patients have really loved that,
We're seeing younger onset of colon cancer, and for every gastroenterologist I've talked to over the last couple of years, we've all seen an increase in precancerous polyps in young patients in their 20s, 30s and 40s as well — making the ability to easily schedule even more important.