• Balmatee Bidassie, Amanda Kovach, Marissa A Vallette, Joseph Merriman, Yeun-Hee Anna Park, Anita Aggarwal, and Sarah Colonna.
• Clinical Partnerships in Healthcare Transformation (CPHT), VA-Center for Applied Systems Engineering (VA-CASE), Veterans Engineering Resource Center (VERC), 2669 Cold Springs Road, Building 9, Indianapolis, IN 46222.
• Mil Med. 2020 Mar 2; 185 (3-4): 512-518.

IntroductionBreast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among women and the second most common cause of cancer death among women. There are ways to reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer; however, most eligible women in the United States are neither offered personalized screening nor chemoprevention. Surveys have found that primary care providers are largely unaware of breast cancer risk assessment models or chemoprevention. This survey aims to investigate Veterans Health Administration primary care providers' comfort level, practice patterns, and knowledge of breast cancer risk assessment and chemoprevention.Materials And MethodsAn online, Research Electronic Data Capture-generated survey was distributed to VHA providers in internal medicine, family medicine, and obstetrics/gynecology. Survey domains were provider demographics, women's health experience, comfort level, practice patterns, barriers to using risk models and chemoprevention, and knowledge of chemoprevention.ResultsOf the 167 respondents, 33.1% used the Gail model monthly or more often and only 2.4% prescribed chemoprevention in the past 2 years. Most VHA primary care providers did not answer chemoprevention knowledge questions correctly. Designated women's health providers were more comfortable with risk assessment (P < 0.018) and chemoprevention (P < 0.011) and used both breast cancer risk models (P < 0.0045) and chemoprevention more often (P < 0.153). Reported barriers to chemoprevention were lack of education and provider time.ConclusionsVHA providers and women Veterans would benefit from a system to ensure that women at increased risk of breast cancer are identified with risk modeling and that risk reduction options, such as chemoprevention, are offered when appropriate. VHA providers requested risk reduction education, which could improve primary care provider comfort level with chemoprevention.© Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2019. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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