Jefferson Regional is pleased to announce that the Jefferson Regional Foundation has been awarded a grant for cancer screenings from the Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas.

This is the second year Jefferson Regional has received assistance from the Blue & You Foundation for cancer screenings.

The grant will be used for year two of Jefferson Regional’s initiative to increase screenings for breast, lung and colorectal cancers in Southeast Arkansas.

Early detection rates remain low and deaths from these three cancers in Arkansas, especially south Arkansas, are too high.

The first year of the program focused on establishing relationships with healthcare providers and the Arkansas Rural Health Partnership to incorporate cancer screenings into their daily patient work flow.

This year’s grant money will be used to expand those projects, to improve the process for follow up care, and to also identify barriers that prevent patients from being screened in the first place.