Innovation in Cancer Treatment: The Impacts of Robotic-Assisted Surgery Adoption at the Brazilian National Cancer Institute.

Robotic-assisted surgery has been actively applied in several fields of minimally invasive surgery, and its use in cancer treatment is increasing. This technology has diffused rapidly, despite high costs and limited reimbursement. Studies have proven the positive results of robotic surgery for patients' quality of life. The objective of this article is to describe the impacts of robotic-assisted cancer surgery adoption at the Brazilian National Cancer Institute. A single qualitative case study was conducted with a descriptive approach, and to have triangulation, data were collected from 3 different sources - participant observation, technical reviews, and seven semi-structured interviews with the main actors involved in the case - and analyzed through content analysis. Despite the considerable costs associated with robotic surgery, this innovation dramatically decreases the length of hospital stay and reduces complications and rehabilitates the patient in a much faster way.

Knowledge Management for Brazilian Cancer Care Services.

Nowadays Brazil has a complex cancer care scenario. There are nearly 600.000 new cancer cases each year in Brazil, and the huge majority of patients have some contact with hospital services. However, long waiting queues for diagnostics and treatments have become common. One of the critical success factors in a cancer treatment is early diagnosis. The reduction of waiting time to start therapeutic procedures is one of the main issues for improvement of patient's quality of life and possibilities of cure. The objective of this work is to describe the development of a decision support system that improves the identification of access alternatives, appointment scheduling and employment of available resources. The Theory of Constraints was used to identify bottlenecks in patient treatment flow and a Discrete Events Simulation model was used to reduce patients' waiting time to start cancer treatment.

Smart Oncology Care Networks: An Approach in Information Systems to Support Brazilian National Cancer Institute.

In last decades Information Technology (IT) has been established as the main tool to support processes. Medical area has noticed the opportunity for improvement and interacting with IT has enabled solid interdisciplinary instruments for improvement. The aim in this project is composed by an analysis of the relationship between the application of information technologies, oncological assistance and innovation. Next, the project will focus to present the case of a proposal to reformulate the national cancer care system, with IT and Innovation being the base instrument for this process.

Decision Support Systems in Cancer Treatment: A Case Study at Brazilian National Cancer Institute.

Nowadays Brazil has a complex cancer care scenario. There are nearly 600.000 new cancer cases each year in Brazil, and the huge majority of patients have some contact with hospital services. However, long waiting queues for diagnostics and treatments have become common. One of the critical success factors in a cancer treatment is early diagnosis. The reduction of waiting time to start therapeutic procedures is one of the main issues for improvement of patient's quality of life and possibilities of cure. The objective of this work is to describe the development of a decision support system that improves the identification of access alternatives, appointment scheduling and employment of available resources. The Theory of Constraints was used to identify bottlenecks in patient treatment flow and a Discrete Events Simulation model was used to reduce patients' waiting time to start cancer treatment.