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T. Timlin



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    OA 11 - Reducing Burden: Patient-Centered Care (ID 682)

    • Event: WCLC 2017
    • Type: Oral
    • Track: Nursing/Palliative Care/Ethics
    • Presentations: 1
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      OA 11.06 - Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Assessment as a System Design Problem: Creating an Award Winning Program with Patient Advocates as Co-Designers (ID 10203)

      11:55 - 12:05  |  Author(s): T. Timlin

      • Abstract
      • Presentation
      • Slides

      Background:
      Lung cancer continues to have a high mortality in Canada, with many patients presenting with advanced stage disease. The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) used a learning health systems (LHS) approach to redesign regional diagnostic processes to reduce the overall time from presentation with a suspicious lung mass to diagnosis and treatment. As previously published by our group, an LHS approach is driven by feedback utilizing operational and clinical information to drive system optimization and innovation. TOH is the only provider of cancer services for a population of 1.3 million people in eastern Ontario and hence the need for an integrated patient journey from regional health facility to tertiary care centre was identified. Patient advocates have been incorporated as key members of the LHS from inception to implementation to post-implementation review.

      Method:
      The Ottawa Health Transformation model (OHTM) was developed as a means of operationalizing a LHS. A kick off meeting brought together cancer patients and their families to map out existing processes and document the patient experience. A regional lung cancer Community of Practice (CoP) of clinical and non-clinical stakeholders was then established to guide and approve the work of a core transformation team. The team had patient and family advocates as key members and they were tasked with identifying appropriate wait time targets and vetting proposed processes. A consensus approach was used to address process barriers, resistance to change and conflicting priorities in regular meetings spanning over two years. Commercially available software was used to track patient progress through the diagnostic process and to report real time metrics to the transformation team.

      Result:
      The project operationalized lung cancer diagnostic pathway guidance and optimized patient flow from referral to initiation of treatment. Twelve major processes in referral, review, diagnostics, assessment, triage and consult were redesigned. TOH now provides a diagnosis to 80% of referrals within the provincial target of 28 days and leads all other jurisdictions in Ontario in this metric by a wide margin. The median patient journey from referral to initial treatment decreased 48% from 92 to 47 days. In 2016 this work was recognized by a provincial cancer agency with a quality award.

      Conclusion:
      A learning health system has significantly reduced the time from referral with suspicion of lung cancer to diagnosis to treatment. Achievements require a multi-disciplinary approach with a regional perspective. Patient and family advocates have an important voice in re-designing health care systems.

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