1. Tracking cancer patients during COVID-19 using structured outcomes and keywords
- Author
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Catherine Urch, Phawan Hurhangee, Rowan Wathes, Gareth Gwynn, and Katherine van Ree
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,2019-20 coronavirus outbreak ,Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) ,business.industry ,COVID-19 rapid report ,Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) ,Cancer ,medicine.disease ,Increased risk ,Emergency medicine ,Health care ,medicine ,Tracking (education) ,business - Abstract
For the duration of COVID-19, cancer pathways will be affected by the significant loss of elective capacity and increased risk of COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality for cancer patients. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT) has developed a simple, effective MDT recording process, using keywords, to support the tracking of patients who require treatment prioritisation, repeated clinical/MDT reviews and/or need adjustments to their treatment. Following implementation in April, the percentage of MDT outcomes with keywords recorded was 79% in June and 77% for the first two weeks of July. Analysis of the 3,680 MDT outcomes with at least one key word recorded showed that 96% had the ‘intention to proceed’ recorded. For 59% patients, the decision was to ‘proceed’, 5% patients are being monitored, 3% patients have been deferred and 29% were ‘closed’. While this process adds time to busy MDTs, we hypothesise that it will support the tracking and safety-netting of thousands of cancer patients whose care has been affected by the pandemic. The process could easily be implemented in other trusts and adapted for other specialties.
- Published
- 2020