Utilization of Support Services, Emergency Department and Hospitalization in Advanced Cancer Patients with Severe Disease in a Community Cancer Institute (QI809)

Abstract

standardized the inclusion of patients' HCP status in daily rounds. The HCP forms were made readily available in our office area and any team member, including our social worker, pharmacist, and learners, could be tasked to obtain a valid HCP document for our patients. We continued to monitor our performance monthly and reported back to individual team members. Results. We collected monthly data from November 2016 to April 2017. The electronic patient charts were randomly checked for the presence of an HCP document to confirm our database. We achieved a 93% or more HCP completion rate by the time of discharge for each of these months. The remaining 7% of patients lacked capacity to make decisions and could not complete a HCP. Conclusions and Implications. Standardization of the process and involvement of all team members appears to be the key in improving HCP documentation. It removes variability and inconsistency between providers and is essential for the success. However, the patient-related factors add some unpredictability. Our next steps involve dissemination within our larger institution.