ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Aurora Health Care (AHC) is the largest health care system in Wisconsin, with 14 acute care hospitals. In early 2010, a group of 18 medical oncologists became affiliated with AHC. This affiliation added 13 medical oncology infusion clinics to our existing 12 sites. In the era of health care reform and declining reimbursement, we need an objective method and criteria to evaluate our 25 outpatient medical oncology sites. We developed financial, clinical, and strategic tools for the evaluation and management of our cancer subservice lines and outpatient sites. The key to our success has been the direct involvement of stakeholders with a vested interest in the services in the selection of the criteria and evaluation process. METHODS: We developed our objective metrics for evaluation based on strategic, financial, operational, and patient experience criteria. Strategic criteria included: population trends, full-time equivalent (FTE) medical oncologists/primary care physicians, FTE radiation oncologists, FTE oncologic surgeons, new annual cases of patients with cancer, and market share trends. Financial criteria per site included: physician work relative value units, staff FTE by type, staff salaries, and profit and loss. Operational criteria included: facility by type (clinic v hospital based), hours of operation, and facility detail (eg, No. of chairs, No. of procedure and examination rooms, square footage). Patient experience criteria included: nursing model primary/nurse navigators, multidisciplinary support at site, Press Ganey (South Bend, IN; health care performance improvement company) results, and employee engagement score. RESULTS: The outcome of our data analysis has resulted in the development of recommendations for AHC senior leadership and geographic market leadership to consider the consolidation of four sites (phase one, four sites; phase two, two sites) and priority strategic sites to address capacity issues that limit growth. The recommendations if implemented would result in significant cost savings, currently being quantified as a result of consolidation and improved efficiency. A reinvestment of these cost savings would be required to address facility expansion and program enhancement to maximize patient-centered expert care consistently across all of our remaining sites of service.
ABSTRACT
A community cancer clinic, through cooperation with its parent health care system, developed a lung cancer multidisciplinary clinic (MDC) to enhance patient care and prevent out-migration to competing health care systems. The local medical and radiation oncologists collaborated with a thoracic surgeon from the tertiary care hospital in establishing the lung MDC. All the participating physicians are employed by the health care system. A cancer care coordinator assured that all necessary tests were obtained and available to the physicians at least 1 day before the clinic. The multidisciplinary team also included a pulmonologist and met every third week. Other sub-specialists were involved as necessary. Final treatment recommendations using National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines were made for each patient at the MDC visit. This clinic, once established, resulted in significant improvements in the quality of care, patient satisfaction and retention of patients. Time from diagnosis to initiation of treatment was reduced to a mean of 18 days from a mean of 24 days. The community cancer clinic had an increase in lung cancer patient care by 28% and a 9.1% increase in gross revenue. The tertiary care hospital benefited by providing all patients with definitive surgery, including minimally invasive surgery. The tertiary hospital thoracic surgeon had a 75% increase in referrals from the lung MDC geographic area over the previous year. This collaboration in the development of MDCs demonstrates how patients, caregivers, and the health care system benefit from MDCs.
