Learning from Adaptations to the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Teleconsultation Supported Cancer Care Pathways at a Comprehensive Cancer Center in Northern Italy.

Multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings are recognized as the gold standard for care management of cancer patients, and during the COVID-19 pandemic they were considered a priority to be maintained. Due to pandemic-related restrictions, MDT meetings were forcibly converted from in-person to telematic format. This retrospective study evaluated the annual performance of four MDT meeting indicators (MDT members' attendance, number of discussed cases, frequency of MDT meetings, and duration) between 2019 and 2022 to report on the implementation of teleconsultation in MDT meetings related to 10 cancer care pathways (CCPs). Over the study period, MDT member participation and the number of discussed cases improved or did not change in 90% (9/10) and 80% (8/10) of the CCPs, respectively. We did not observe significant differences in any of the CCPs included in the study regarding the annual frequency and duration of MDT meeting. Considering the rapidity, extent, and intensity with which telematic tools were adopted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the results of this study showed that MDT teleconsultation supported the CCPs, and consequently, the delivery of cancer care in COVID-19 times, helping to understand the effects of telematic tools on health care performance and the parties involved.

Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 on Hospital Care Pathways

Care pathways in hospitals around the world reported significant disruption during the recent COVID-19 pandemic but measuring the actual impact is more problematic. Process mining can be useful for hospital management to measure the conformance of real-life care to what might be considered normal operations. In this study, we aim to demonstrate that process mining can be used to investigate process changes associated with complex disruptive events. We studied perturbations to accident and emergency (A &E) and maternity pathways in a UK public hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-incidentally the hospital had implemented a Command Centre approach for patient-flow management affording an opportunity to study both the planned improvement and the disruption due to the pandemic. Our study proposes and demonstrates a method for measuring and investigating the impact of such planned and unplanned disruptions affecting hospital care pathways. We found that during the pandemic, both A &E and maternity pathways had measurable reductions in the mean length of stay and a measurable drop in the percentage of pathways conforming to normative models. There were no distinctive patterns of monthly mean values of length of stay nor conformance throughout the phases of the installation of the hospital's new Command Centre approach. Due to a deficit in the available A &E data, the findings for A &E pathways could not be interpreted. © 2023, The Author(s).

Complex organisational factors influence multidisciplinary care for patients with hip fractures: a qualitative study of barriers and facilitators to service delivery.

BACKGROUND: Hip fractures are devastating injuries, with high health and social care costs. Despite national standards and guidelines, substantial variation persists in hospital delivery of hip fracture care and patient outcomes. This qualitative study aimed to identify organisational processes that can be targeted to reduce variation in service provision and improve patient care. METHODS: Interviews were conducted with 40 staff delivering hip fracture care in four UK hospitals. Twenty-three anonymised British Orthopaedic Association reports addressing under-performing hip fracture services were analysed. Following Thematic Analysis of both data sources, themes were transposed onto domains both along and across the hip fracture care pathway. RESULTS: Effective pre-operative care required early alert of patient admission and the availability of staff in emergency departments to undertake assessments, investigations and administer analgesia. Coordinated decision-making between medical and surgical teams regarding surgery was key, with strategies to ensure flexible but efficient trauma lists. Orthogeriatric services were central to effective service delivery, with collaborative working and supervision of junior doctors, specialist nurses and therapists. Information sharing via multidisciplinary meetings was facilitated by joined up information and technology systems. Service provision was improved by embedding hip fracture pathway documents in induction and training and ensuring their consistent use by the whole team. Hospital executive leadership was important in prioritising hip fracture care and advocating service improvement. Nominated specialty leads, who jointly owned the pathway and met regularly, actively steered services and regularly monitored performance, investigating lapses and consistently feeding back to the multidisciplinary team. CONCLUSION: Findings highlight the importance of representation from all teams and departments involved in the multidisciplinary care pathway, to deliver integrated hip fracture care. Complex, potentially modifiable, barriers and facilitators to care delivery were identified, informing recommendations to improve effective hip fracture care delivery, and assist hospital services when re-designing and implementing service improvements.

[Community pharmacists are also first aid actors. Results of the survey on unscheduled care in pharmacies in the Grand Est region]. / Les pharmaciens d'officine sont aussi des acteurs du 1er recours. Résultats de l'enquête demandes de soins non programmés dans les officines du Grand Est.

INTRODUCTION: According to the Public Healthcare Code, contributing to primary care is one of the pharmacist's key missions. Accessibility without appointment and the territorial network of pharmacies make the pharmacist an essential player in the management of unscheduled care, which remains an important gateway for users into the primary care system. This type of requests, daily in pharmacies, has not been yet the subject of a qualitative or quantitative evaluation. The Grand-Est Region, regrouping nearly 8% of French pharmacies, wanted to conduct a specific survey to quantify and assess the unscheduled care requests addressed to pharmacists on its territory. METHODS: The survey by URPS Pharmacists and ARS Grand-Est was conducted by Tous Pour la Santé over a period of 12months from November 2020 to November 2021. Participation in the study was on a voluntary basis. The main objective of this study was to define the typology of unscheduled care requests addressed to the Region pharmacies and to characterize the responses provided. RESULTS: One hundred and eighty-nine pharmacies (nearly 12% of Grand Est pharmacies, the participation rate could certainly have been higher if the study had not been conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic), representing 11,010 unscheduled care requests, took part in the survey. Despite the profession's massive desire to get involved in handling unscheduled care requests, the survey revealed a lack of specific training for pharmacists on this subject and an all-too-rare update from the AFGSU. User requests concern both daily healthcare needs and more specific chronic patients' needs. They evolve according to the profile of the applicant, the seasons, the days of the week and the type of pharmacy concerned. All ages are represented, including young adults. The average duration of care by the pharmacy team was 8minutes per request, even though in 20% of cases this did not lead to any delivery of product and in 11% of cases to no remuneration for the pharmacist. CONCLUSION: This survey confirmed the role of the pharmacist in responding to unscheduled care requests as a first-line actor and referral agent in the health system. The implementation of shared multiprofessional protocols, including first and foremost general practionners, and the recognition of the contribution of pharmacy teams would allow to define a framework to optimize the patient's journey through the healthcare system.

The primary care COVID-19 integrated pathway: a rapid response to health and social impacts of COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: The first wave of COVID-19 in Calgary, Alberta accelerated the integration of primary care with the province's centrally managed health system. This integration aimed to deliver wraparound in-community patient care through two interventions that combined to create the COVID-19 Integrated Pathway (CIP). The CIP's interventions were: 1) a data sharing platform that ensured COVID-19 test results were directly available to family physicians (FPs), and 2) a clinical algorithm that supported FPs in delivering in-community follow up to improve patient outcomes. We describe the CIP function and its capacity to facilitate FP follow-up with COVID-19 patients and evaluate its impact on Emergency Department (ED) visits and hospitalization. METHOD: We generated descriptive statistics by analyzing data from a Calgary Zone hub clinic called the Calgary COVID-19 Care Clinic (C4), provincially maintained records of hospitalization, ED visits, and physician claims. RESULTS: Between Apr. 16 and Sep. 27, 2020, 7289 patients were referred by the Calgary Public Health team to the C4 clinic. Of those, 48.6% were female, the median age was 37.4 y. 97% of patients had at least one visit with a healthcare professional, where follow-up was conducted using the CIP's algorithm. 5.1% of patients visited an ED and 1.9% were hospitalized within 30 days of diagnosis. 75% of patients had a median of 4 visits with their FP. DISCUSSION: Our data suggest that information exchange between Primary Care (PC) and central systems facilitates primary care-based management of patients with COVID-19 in the community and has potential to reduce acute care visits.

[Recommendations for the management of long Covid]. / Les recommandations de prise en charge du Covid long.

As we enter the eighth wave of pandemic Covid-19 infection, the disabling persistence of certain symptoms after this viral infection, often trivial with the latest variants, is still a concern. The most effective treatment of these prolonged symptoms after Covid remains a rapid diagnosis, even if it is primarily of elimination, followed by comprehensive, multidisciplinary, specialized management and early but individualized self-help exercises.

[Post-Covid Affection, an adapted management is necessary]. / Affection post-Covid, une prise en charge adaptée est nécessaire.

Covid-19 is a polymorphic disease, characterized in some patients by persistent symptoms several weeks or even months after the initial manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This is referred to as "long Covid" or post-Covid-19 disease. The polysymptomatic and fluctuating nature of these clinical manifestations generates questions and concerns for patients. To meet their care needs, the regional health agencies have worked with local health care providers to develop appropriate care pathways.

Audit and feedback in cardio- and cerebrovascular setting: Toward a path of high reliability in Italian healthcare.

Adopting audit and feedback (A&F) strategies could be a suitable healthcare intervention to fulfill the challenge of monitoring and improving clinical guidelines in evidence-based medicine. Indeed, A&F is used to encourage professionals to better adhere to standard guidelines to improve healthcare performance. Briefly, an audit is an inspection of professional practice in comparison to professional standards or targets whose results are subsequently communicated to professionals in a structured manner. Although A&F strategies have been adopted in several time-dependent settings, such as for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and stroke, interest of audits in rehabilitation care is also emerging. Recently, the Italian Ministry of Health has funded a national network project called EASY-NET, whose main objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of A&F strategies to improve healthcare practice and equity in various clinical and organizational settings in seven Italian regions. Last but not the least of these regions is the Sicily, represented within the project by the IRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino-Pulejo of Messina as the work package 7 (WP7). The EASY-NET WP7 is focused on the effectiveness of A&F strategies in both AMI and ischemic stroke setting, from acute to rehabilitation process of care. In this study, we described the study protocol, including the study design and methodology, providing a detailed description of the new model of A&F based on telemedicine, and discussing the possible challenges of this project.

A Pilot Study of the Efficacy and Economical Sustainability of Acute Coronavirus Disease 2019 Patient Management in an Outpatient Setting.

Objective: To report a preliminary experience of outpatient management of patients with Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) through an innovative approach of healthcare delivery. Patients and Methods: Patients evaluated at the Mild-to-Moderate COVID-19 Outpatient clinics (MMCOs) of San Raffaele University Hospital and Luigi Sacco University Hospital in Milan, Italy, from 1 October 2020 to 31 October 2021 were included. Patients were referred by general practitioners (GPs), Emergency Department (ED) physicians or hospital specialists (HS) in case of moderate COVID-19. A classification and regression tree (CART) model predicting ED referral by MMCO physicians was developed to aid GPs identify those deserving immediate ED admission. Cost-effectiveness analysis was also performed. Results: A total of 660 patients were included. The majority (70%) was referred by GPs, 21% by the ED and 9% by HS. Patients referred by GPs had more severe disease as assessed by peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2), ratio of arterial oxygen partial pressure to fractional inspired oxygen (PaO2/FiO2), C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and interstitial involvement at lung ultrasound. Among them, 18% were addressed to the ED following MMCO assessment. CART analysis identified three independent predictors, namely home-measured SpO2, age and body mass index (BMI), that robustly divide patients into risk groups of COVID-19 severity. Home-measured SpO2 < 95% and BMI ≥ 33 Kg/m2 defined the high-risk group. The model yielded an accuracy (95% CI) of 83 (77-88)%. Outpatient management of COVID-19 patients allowed the national healthcare system to spare 1,490,422.05 € when compared with inpatient care. Conclusion: Mild-to-moderate COVID-19 outpatient clinics were effective and sustainable in managing COVID-19 patients and allowed to alleviate pressure on EDs and hospital wards, favoring effort redirection toward non-COVID-19 patients.

One-year COVID-19 outcomes on the oncology care patient pathway: Results of a French descriptive, cross-sectional comprehensive study (ONCOCARE-COV).

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic led to a widely documented disruption in cancer care pathway. Since a resurgence of the pandemic was expected after the first lockdown in France, the global impact on the cancer care pathway over the year 2020 was investigated. AIMS: This study aimed to describe the changes in the oncology care pathway for cancer screening, diagnosis, assessment, diagnosis annoucement procedure and treatment over a one-year period. MATERIALS & METHODS: The ONCOCARE-COV study was a comprehensive, retrospective, descriptive, and cross-sectional study comparing the years 2019 and 2020. All key indicators along the cancer care pathway assessing the oncological activity over four periods were described. This study was set in a high-volume, public, single tertiary care center divided in two complementary sites (Reims University Hospital and Godinot Cancer Institute, Reims, France) which was located in a high COVID-19 incidence area during both peaks of the outbreak. RESULTS: A total of 26,566 patient's files were active during the year 2020. Breast screening (-19.5%), announcement dedicated consultations (-9.2%), Intravenous and Hyperthermic Intraoperative Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPECs) (-25%), and oncogeriatric evaluations (-14.8%) were heavily disrupted in regard to 2020 activity. We identified a clear second outbreak wave impact on medical announcement procedures (October, -14.4%), radiotherapy sessions (October, -16%), number of new health record discussed in multidisciplinary tumor board meeting (November, -14.6%) and HIPECs (November, -100%). Moreover, 2020 cancer care activity stagnated compared to 2019. DISCUSSION: The oncological care pathway was heavily disrupted during the first and second peaks of the COVID-19 outbreak. Between lockdowns, we observed a remarkable but non-compensatory recovery as well as a lesser impact from the pandemic resurgence. However, in absence of an increase in activity, a backlog persisted. CONCLUSION: Public health efforts are needed to deal with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the oncology care pathway.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on disease stage and treatment for patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma: A French comprehensive multicentre ambispective observational cohort study (CAPANCOVID).

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic caused major oncology care pathway disruption. The CAPANCOVID study aimed to evaluate the impact on pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PA) - from diagnosis to treatment - of the reorganisation of the health care system during the first lockdown. METHODS: This multicentre ambispective observational study included 833 patients diagnosed with PA between September 1, 2019 and October 31, 2020 from 13 French centres. Data were compared over three periods defined as before the outbreak of COVID-19, during the first lockdown (March 1 to May 11, 2020) and after lockdown. RESULTS: During the lockdown, mean weekly number of new cases decreased compared with that of pre-pandemic levels (13.2 vs. 10.8, -18.2%; p = 0.63) without rebound in the post-lockdown period (13.2 vs. 12.9, -1.7%; p = 0.97). The number of borderline tumours increased (13.6%-21.7%), whereas the rate of metastatic diseases rate dropped (47.1%-40.3%) (p = 0.046). Time-to-diagnosis and -treatment were not different over periods. Waiting neoadjuvant chemotherapy in resectable tumours was significantly favoured (24.7%-32.6%) compared with upfront surgery (13%-7.8%) (p = 0.013). The use of mFOLFIRINOX preoperative chemotherapy regimen decreased (84.9%-69%; p = 0.044). After lockdown, the number of borderline tumours decreased (21.7%-9.6%) and advanced diseases increased (59.7%-69.8%) (p = 0.046). SARS-CoV-2 infected 39 patients (4.7%) causing 5 deaths (12.8%). CONCLUSION: This cohort study suggests the existence of missing diagnoses and of a shift in disease stage at diagnosis from resectable to advanced diseases with related therapeutic modifications whose prognostic consequences will be known after the planned follow-up. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04406571.

Travailler ensemble, la clé de l’efficience

Pour être plus efficient, le système de soins doit dépasser le travail en silo. L’émergence des maisons ou pôles de santé et des communautés professionnelles territoriales de santé favorise un fonctionnement basé sur la synergie, où chaque acteur apporte ses compétences. La réussite tient en la capacité à mettre en œuvre un projet au bénéfice des patients. Working together, the key to efficiency To be more efficient, the healthcare system must move beyond working in silos. The emergence of health centers or clusters and territorial professional health communities favors an approach based on synergy, where each player contributes his or her skills. Success lies in the ability to implement a project for the benefit of patients.

Working together, the key to efficiency

To be more efficient, the healthcare system must move beyond working in silos. The emergence of health centers or clusters and territorial professional health communities favors an approach based on synergy, where each player contributes his or her skills. Success lies in the ability to implement a project for the benefit of patients. © 2021

Temporal Phenotyping for Characterisation of Hospital Care Pathways of COVID19 Patients

During the COVID19 crisis, Intensive Care Units admitted many patients with breathing disorders up to respiratory insufficiency. The care strategy of such patients was difficult to find and preventing patients to drift away toward a critical situation was one of the first challenge of physicians. In this study, we would like to characterize care pathways of patients that required a mechanical ventilation. The mechanical ventilation is an invasive treatment for the most critical respiratory insufficiencies. Through the analysis of the sequence of cares, we aim at supporting physicians to better understand patients evolution and let them propose new medical procedures to prevent some patients to be ventilated. This article proposes a method which combines a tensor factorization and sequence clustering. The tensor factorization enables to represent the care sequences as a sequence of daily phenotypes. Then, the sequences of phenotypes is clustered to extract typical care trajectories. This method is experimented on real data from Greater Paris university Hospital and is compared to a direct clustering of the sequences. The results show that the outputs are more easily interpretable with the proposed method. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

[Care pathway for Covid-19 patients in a hospital in Luxembourg]. / Parcours de soins des patients atteints de la Covid-19 dans un centre hospitalier au Luxembourg.

The current care pathway for COVID-19 patients was set up at the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg following the experiences of the first wave. The role of the nurse in this pathway is fundamental: she coordinates care and the multidisciplinary team as well as the families, in addition to monitoring and treating the patients. Her tool is clinical reasoning, which is the guarantee of care adapted to the needs and expectations of the patients.

An advanced self-care delivery model for leg ulcer management: a service evaluation.

BACKGROUND: Lower limb ulceration is a common cause of suffering in patients and its management poses a significant burden on the NHS, with venous leg ulcers (VLUs) being the most common hard-to-heal wound in the UK. It is estimated that over one million patients in the UK have lower limb ulceration, of which 560,000 were categorised as VLUs, with a cost burden of over £3 billion each year. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this service evaluation was to assess the effects of implementing a self-care delivery model on clinical outcomes with the intention of limiting face-to-face health professional contact to one appointment every 6 weeks. METHOD: A suitability assessment was conducted and a cohort of patients were moved to a self-care delivery model. Patient data were collected, anonymised and independently analysed, comparing time to healing against data on file from a previous report. RESULTS: This highlighted that, in 84 of the 95 patients selected, the VLUs had healed by week 24 on the pathway, a further 10 patients' VLUs had healed by week 42 and only one remaining patient reached 42 weeks without healing. CONCLUSION: These results support the hypothesis that patients with VLUs can self-care and deliver clinical effectiveness. It is recommended that all services explore the possibility of introducing a self-care model for VLU care.

Toward the Integration of Technology-Based Interventions in the Care Pathway for People with Dementia: A Cross-National Study.

BACKGROUND: The integration of technology-based interventions into health and care provision in our aging society is still a challenge especially in the care pathway for people with dementia. OBJECTIVE: The study aims to: (1) identify which socio-demographic characteristics are independently associated with the use of the embodied conversational agent among subjects with dementia, (2) uncover patient cluster profiles based on these characteristics, and (3) discuss technology-based interventions challenges. METHODS: A virtual agent was used for four weeks by 55 persons with dementia living in their home environment. RESULTS: Participants evaluated the agent as easy-to-use and quickly learnable. They felt confident while using the system and expressed the willingness to use it frequently. Moreover, 21/55 of the patients perceived the virtual agent as a friend and assistant who they could feel close to and who would remind them of important things. CONCLUSIONS: Technology-based interventions require a significant effort, such as personalized features and patient-centered care pathways, to be effective. Therefore, this study enriches the open discussion on how such virtual agents must be evidence-based related and designed by multidisciplinary teams, following patient-centered care as well as user-centered design approaches.

Barriers to symptom management care pathway implementation in pediatric Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Objectives were to describe barriers to pediatric cancer symptom management care pathway implementation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical research evaluating their implementation. METHODS: We included 25 pediatric oncology hospitals in the United States that supported a grant submission to perform a cluster randomized trial in which the intervention encompassed care pathways for symptom management. A survey was distributed to site principal investigators prior to randomization to measure contextual elements related to care pathway implementation. Questions included the inner setting measures of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), study-specific potential barriers and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical research. The Wilcoxon rank sum test was used to compare characteristics of institutions that agreed that their department supported the implementation of symptom management care pathways vs. institutions that did not agree. RESULTS: Of the 25 sites, one withdrew because of resource constraints and one did not respond, leaving 23 institutions. Among the seven CFIR constructs, the least supported was implementation climate; 57% agreed there was support, 39% agreed there was recognition and 39% agreed there was prioritization for symptom management care pathway implementation at their institution. Most common barriers were lack of person-time to create care pathways and champion their use (35%), lack of interest from physicians (30%) and lack of information technology resources (26%). Most sites reported no negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across research activities. Sites with fewer pediatric cancer patients were more likely to agree that staff are supported to implement symptom management care pathways (P = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: The most commonly reported barriers to implementation were lack of support, recognition and prioritization. The COVID-19 pandemic may not be a major barrier to clinical research activities in pediatric oncology.

Designing Dementia Care Pathways to Transform Non Dementia-Friendly Hospitals: Scoping Review.

People with dementia (PwD) occupy around 25% of the hospital beds. Once PwD are admitted to hospitals, their cognitive impairment is not considered in most of the cases. Thus, it causes an impact on the development of the disease becoming a stressful situation as care plans are not adapted to PwD. The aim of this study was to explore the published core elements when designing a dementia care pathway for hospital settings. A scoping review was conducted to provide an overview of the available research evidence and identify the knowledge gaps regarding the topic. This review highlights person-centered care, compassionate care and end-of-life process as some of the key elements that should integrate the framework when designing a dementia care pathway. Architectonical outdoor and indoor hospital elements have also been found to be considered when adapting the healthcare context to PwD. Findings provide information about the key points to focus on to successfully design dementia interventions in hospital environments within available resources, mostly in those contexts in which national dementia plans are in its infancy. Hospitals should transform their patients' routes and processes considering the increasing demographic changes of people with cognitive impairment.

A Canadian Perspective on the Challenges for Delivery of Curative-Intent Therapy in Stage III Unresectable Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) comprises a highly heterogenous group of patients with regards to patient fitness and tumour size and distribution, resulting in a wide range of treatment goals and therapy options. Curative-intent multimodality treatment should be considered in all patients with stage III NSCLC. For patients with unresectable disease who are fit, have adequate lung function, and have a disease that can be encompassed within a radical radiation volume, concurrent chemoradiation therapy (cCRT) is the standard of care and can produce cure rates of 20-30%. Recently, consolidation immunotherapy with durvalumab has been recognized as the standard of care following cCRT based on significant improvement rates in overall survival at 4 years. The large heterogeneity of the stage III NSCLC population, along with the need for extensive staging procedures, multidisciplinary care, intensive cCRT, and now consolidation therapy makes the delivery of timely and optimal treatment for these patients complex. Several logistical, communication, and education factors hinder the delivery of guideline-recommended care to patients with stage III unresectable NSCLC. This commentary discusses the potential challenges patients may encounter at different points along their care pathway that can interfere with delivery of curative-intent therapy and suggests strategies for improving care delivery.