Clinical Care Pathway for Head and Neck Cancer

Abstract

The CCP for head and neck cancer maintained the improvement in LOS and charges seen in the first year of implementation and continues to decrease resource utilization while enhancing quality of care.

Decreased Complications After Total Laryngectomy Using a Clinical Care Pathway

“…Our results echo the positive findings of other studies examining the effects of clinical pathways on patient outcomes. [8][9][10]12 We found a decrease in the total complication rate in the postpathway cohort. Thus, the prepathway group was at increased risk of having a complication overall even though individual complication rates did not differ significantly between the 2 cohorts.…”

“…Clinical pathways have been proven to reduce resource utilization without jeopardizing safety. [8][9][10][11][12] In 1999, Hanna et al examined how a clinical pathway impacted cost and quality of care for postoperative laryngectomy patients at their institution. 11 The study showed a 14.4% reduction in hospital cost associated with pathway implementation, as well as a decrease in readmission rate.…”

Outcomes in head and neck oncologic surgery at academic medical centers in the united states

“…Major head and neck oncologic resections also benefit from incorporation of clinical care pathways (CCP). A CCP is a structured patient health care plan that organizes daily interventions and goals for a specific diagnosis or procedure along a time line 34, 35. Gendron et al34 showed that the CCP reduced LOS from 13 days to 8 days in the first year and from 10.5 to 6.4 days at 3 years after implementation.…”

Best Practice in Surgical Treatment of Malignant Head and Neck Tumors

“…Adherence to guidelines from the national comprehensive cancer network (NCCN) to initiate adjuvant postoperative radiation therapy within 6 weeks was found to vary widely between institutions (18,19). Therefore, continued performance monitoring is important to follow the implementation of clinical pathways (20). This monitoring can be assured by providing feedback to health care providers on performance indicators.…”