Cancer survivorship care plans time and effort.

Abstract

146 Background: The Lifespan Cancer Institute (LCI) is one program based at three hospitals in the Lifespan healthcare system, a main teaching affiliate of Brown Medical School. All sites are ASCO QOPI certified. In 2017, 1,742 patients from radiation, surgical, and medical oncology were diagnosed and/or treated for cancer. The Commission on Cancer guidelines specify patients with a new diagnosis of cancer treated with curative intent receive a survivorship care plan (SCP) within one year of diagnosis extended to 18 months for those receiving hormone therapy. Methods: The LCI Quality team is a multidisciplinary group comprised of nursing, leadership, physicians, midlevel providers, administrative assistants, and tumor registry staff. Our Quality Improvement Project for 2017 was generation and distribution of survivorship care plans to 50% of eligible patients. Our project underwent 5 plan/do/study/act cycles (PDSA). Prior to the intervention only 271 care plans were prepared and delivered for 2016 diagnoses. Results: For the total 2017 diagnoses, 843 eligible patients were treated within the LCI (medical and radiation oncology). Survivorship Care plans completed by midlevel providers were generated and distributed to 100% of LCI patients during January -April 2018 (244 in total), a 37% increase compared to the same timeframe, one year previous. The electronic medical record provides tools for SCP preparation including auto population of demographics and chemotherapy plan. Staging, radiation, and surgery are manually entered. On average, each SCP required 1 hour to complete for approximately 244 hours of midlevel provider time for January -April 2018. This abstract’s time and effort does not include the time for patient calls, survivorship visits or administrative monitoring. Conclusions: Survivorship care plans provide patients and primary care providers a summary of the treatment plan and recommendations for follow up/survivorship goals in transitions of care. Significant time and effort is required to generate an individual SCP therefore the goal should be to increase electronic efficiencies within the medical record, and focus on the clinically relevant patient population who are most likely to survive 5 years and be impacted by diagnosis and treatment.