P3.11-11 Improving Timeliness of Lung Cancer Diagnostic Services with the Implementation of Coordinated Care via a “Navigation Day”

Abstract

Lung cancer patients often experience stressful wait times and delays throughout the diagnostic phase of care. In an effort to streamline this process, a multidisciplinary team at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) created a “Navigation Day” whereby patients and their family partake in a day-long visit and receive concurrent coordinated testing. At the Navigation Day, patients have teaching, introduction to social work, access to specialist care for symptom control, and same day appointments via dedicated test slots for positron emission tomography–computed tomography (PET-CT) scans, pulmonary function tests (PFTs) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the head. We evaluated the impact of this program on wait times and patient satisfaction. Patients with a suspicion of lung cancer on chest CT who were referred during three time periods relative to the implementation of Navigation Day were included: one year pre-launch, one year post-launch, and two years post-launch. Mean wait times for PET, PFT, and/or MRI tests were calculated for each time period. To specifically assess the impact of dedicated slots on wait times, patients within each time period were stratified according to whether they underwent their test on the same day or different day from their Navigation Day. Student’s t-test and ANOVA were used to assess for significance. Patient satisfaction was measured by examining provincially-collected data from a standardized survey used by all diagnostic assessment programs in Ontario, and data from program-specific feedback surveys distributed at TOH. At one year post-launch, mean wait times improved from 15.5 to 9.2 days for PET (p<0.0001, t-test), from 15.7 to 9.6 days for PFT (p<0.0001), and from 16.0 to 10.2 days for MRI (p<0.0001). These improvements were sustained at two years post-launch, and MRI wait time improved even further from 10.2 to 6.6 days (p<0.0001, t-test). Those patients who underwent tests within a dedicated slot experienced the shortest wait times for all tests, at 5.8 days for PET, 5.8 days for PFT, and 6.3 days for MRI (p<0.0001, ANOVA). Wait time dispersion also improved by 11.2% for PET, 10.1% for PFT, and 19.1% for MRI. Patient satisfaction in the categories of quality of care, rapidity of care, coordination of care, and being informed remained high following the implementation of Navigation Day. Implementation of a Navigation Day significantly improved timeliness of diagnostic services (PET, PFT, and MRI) for potential lung cancer patients. This program represents an innovative service delivery model for other lung cancer care centers.