Home > Education : Transitions Between Care Settings Best Practices Overview
Transitions Between Care Settings: "Best Practices" Project
The Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) will study the issue of care transition between the hospital cancer program and physician group practices. The goals are to 1) understand the challenges involved in transitioning cancer patients between care settings, 2) identify best practices for ensuring a smooth transition between the two care settings, and 3) provide educational materials and disseminate findings.
Katherine Herring Capps of Health2 Resources explains ACCC's new educational project. |
ACCC will examine three key areas: 1) the adequacy and completeness of the medical record, 2) the continuity of drug therapy (medication reconciliation), and 3) the communication among providers, such as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and social workers—both internally (within their own programs) and externally (between the two care settings).
As a first step, an ACCC Advisory Committee working with Health2 Resources has developed a survey on transitions between the hospital cancer program and physician group practice. Survey analysis will help to identify five hospital programs and five oncology practices that have "best practices" in patient transition between the two care settings.
More intensive interviews will be conducted to gain a deeper understanding of their best practices. A final report will serve as a basis for an educational program at ACCC's National Oncology Economics Conference.
Objectives:
- To identify the problems that cancer programs and physician practices have when transitioning their patients from one setting to another.
- To identify best practices in patient transition between the two care settings and how these best practices can be implemented.
- To provide tools to measure whether patient care is enhanced by having these best practices.
- To raise awareness about potential problems and solutions in cancer patient transition between the hospital and physician practice setting.
Coming in 2010:
- Live and archived webinar
- Online resource center on www.accc-cancer.org
- Presentation of results at ACCC's National Oncology Economics Conference
- Publication of results within Oncology Issues
Key Transition Areas:
Some key transition areas that the project will explore include:
- Documentation and Protocols
- Communication of hospital EMR with group practice EMR
- Enforcement of transition protocols with checklists
- Safety events and reporting
- Drug Reconciliation
- Hospital procedures to identify home drugs
- Inclusion of specialty chemotherapy drugs for home administration within hospital or group order entry systems
- Training of nurses and others in order entry systems
- Communication
- Hospitalist/oncologist communication
- Contact between hospital attending and oncology group physicians
- Follow-up with group practice and/or patient to ensure first visits to oncology practice.
If you have any comments about this project, we would like to hear from you.
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