Clarifying the Purpose of Visit within a Multidisciplinary Cancer Clinic

Results/Benefits/Challenges: Benefits:  Convenience; participants were able to access and complete materials at home  Elimination of storage space, data entry, materials and other resources typically required with paper-based evaluations Challenges:  Inability of participants to access materials online, resulting in low return rate  Compliance with privacy and confidentiality requirements Conclusion/Impact/Outcomes: This is our first attempt at implementing an online survey with patient participants in the setting of an REB approved study. The resulting benefits have the potential to outweigh the inherent challenges if lessons learned are brought forward when designing future evaluation surveys.

Clarifying the Purpose of Visit within a Multidisciplinary Cancer Clinic Emily Sinclairab a - University of Toronto b - Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre Purpose/Aim: Long wait times for appointments, extended stays in the clinic room, seeing multiple practitioners and a general misunderstanding of why they were in the clinic, led to the observance of many upset and frustrated patients. In an effort to improve the patient experience a Pre-Clinic Expectations questionnaire was developed and administered over a 4 week period to patients attending the clinic. What we learned was that patients were not receiving information about the clinic from their referring physician, had no idea they would be seeing several clinicians resulting in patients not allowing themselves enough time for the visit and many had no idea why they were coming to a cancer center. Communication needed to improve. In response, a CSRT led telephone pre-assessment was introduced.

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Method/Process: After 3 months the Pre Clinic Expectations questionnaire was administered for 8 weeks. Of the patients contacted only 7% still reported lacking information about the nature of the clinic as opposed to 63% previously. This could be due to the patient population; with an average age of 75 years. All patients responded they were aware that they would be seeing several clinicians within the cancer center. Only 5% of patients were concerned about the time required for the appointment (Wheeltrans and ride pick up time being the common element). There were 2 weeks where pre clinic calls were not made, during this time period these results were collected : first week 3 failed to show patients, 1 patient upset due to not having surgery that day, 2 patients did not bring their medication list. Second week, 2 patients complaining they were unhappy with the wait time, 4 patients did not bring their medication list, 2 patients upset they were not getting offered surgery same day. Results/Benefits/Challenges: No angry patients in clinic on the weeks they are pre called and kept informed. In the weeks not called patients are upset due to: not getting samd day surgery, the long waits and the fact they are seeing so many people. There are a few patients unable to be contacted ahead of time (phone numbers disconnected etc.) and they still arrive with their preconceptions of what to expect in the clinic. A benefit not previously considered was noticed. When pre called 1 out of 13 patients cancelled their appointments for various reasons, this left a vacant slot to move a patient up to be seen sooner or to fit in emergency patients. Conclusion/Impact/Outcomes: This new initiative is working well for both the patients and the clinic. A plan to re administer the questionnaire once per year to ensure patients are continuing to receive the information they require before they attend the clinic is in place. We are confident this initiative has increased patient satisfaction and allayed many of their fears and frustrations.

Conference Proceedings from RTi3 2017/Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences 48 (2017) S1-S22