Utilizing Quality Improvement Methods to Examine the Radiation Therapy Pathway for Patients Requiring Palliative Radiation Therapy at a Community Cancer Center.
J Med Imaging Radiat Sci
; 50(3): 378-386, 2019 Sep.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-31307944
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
At a community cancer center, during weekly quality improvement huddles, the radiation therapy team expressed stress and frustration with the pretreatment pathway for patients requiring palliative radiotherapy. As the department was meeting provincial targets with respect to wait times, it was unknown why the consensus around the department reflected discomfort and stress.METHODS:
Four radiation therapists formed a quality improvement project team, intent on utilizing a data-driven improvement cycle to investigate and address opportunities to improve the discomfort around this pretreatment pathway. After defining the process and identifying the customers (the health care providers operating in this pathway), the team conducted interviews with each person, transcribing answers verbatim, and grouping results by discipline. Utilizing the interview themes, each discipline identified one or two priorities to measure, as well as metrics to capture the magnitude and prevalence of these priorities.RESULTS:
Each discipline's priorities were measured and analyzed. The identified issues brought forward at the weekly quality improvement huddles were not as prevalent as expected. Minor changes were implemented for priority issues.CONCLUSION:
The team focused on the four principles of quality improvement the patient, team, process, and data to address the expressed discomfort around this specific radiation therapy pathway. The results dispelled some of the myths among teams and provided solutions to areas where minor improvements were required. Utilizing the data, an evidence-informed timeline was validated, encouraging task deadlines to be more evenly distributed across the pathway. Plans to monitor this pathway are being established. The team was successful in contributing to a growing culture of continuous improvement at this community cancer center.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Métodos Terapêuticos e Terapias MTCI:
Plantas_medicinales
Assunto principal:
Cuidados Paliativos
/
Radioterapia
/
Institutos de Câncer
/
Procedimentos Clínicos
/
Melhoria de Qualidade
Tipo de estudo:
Guideline
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Med Imaging Radiat Sci
Ano de publicação:
2019
Tipo de documento:
Article