Describing the Use of a Cost Effective Online Tool to Qualify the Geographic Location of Patients Served By an Outpatient Oncology Center

Abstract

At MD Anderson’s outpatient cancer center in Sugar Land, Texas, we sought to evaluate the utility of obtaining consent during a separate clinic appointment the day prior to chemotherapy infusions. However, there was some apprehension regarding the length of travel that many patients would have to undertake in order to visit our clinic on two separate days. We sought to use geo-coding techniques to qualify where our patients lived in relationship to our center, but were frustrated by the cost and complexity of existing options, especially at a center without statistics or information analysis support. Here, we describe a technique of using easy, readily available, and free online tools (Google Fusion Tables) to generate data that is accessible to any community clinic with limited resources.