On March 4, 2022, David R. Penberthy, MD, MBA, Medical Director of Radiation Oncology at Bon Secours-Southside Medical Center Cancer Center, was named president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC). Along with this news, Dr. Penberthy released his 2022-2023 President's Theme "Leveraging Technology to Transform Cancer Care Delivery and the Patient Experience," with identified objectives to:
* Leverage data and digital health tools to identify ways to reduce health disparities
* Identify strategies to use technology to help mitigate workforce shortages and improve efficiency of care
* Advocate for equitable access to technology innovations and adequate reimbursement for their application in cancer care delivery
* Convene technology-driven changemakers to share solutions and envision the future state of oncology driven by the patient experience.
As part of his promised delivery of technology-based solutions and envisioning the ideal future state, Dr. Penberthy is hosting four Tech Talks-60-minute video calls with ACCC members where subject-matter experts lead small-group discussions on how technology can improve the patient experience and outcomes.
Providing Care in the Home
The first of four Tech Talks was held on July 14, focusing on the home as a site of cancer care. The expansion in access to telehealth services during the COVID-19 public health emergency and Medicare coverage for remote patient monitoring have allowed patients to increasingly receive care at home. On a macro level, Tech Talk speakers discussed how certain technologies have revolutionized cancer care delivery, as well as regulatory and reimbursement barriers to long-term transformation. On a micro level, speakers focused on care models that are currently used in cancer programs and practices across the United States to provide care in the home, staffing requirements for these models, services that can be delivered safely to patients at home, telehealth implications, payer and policy strategies, and more.
More than 40 ACCC members joined this live event to learn from one another, ask and address questions, and explore new ideas. For those cancer program and practices looking to begin offering care to patients in their homes, the Tech Talk offered several tips to support planning efforts:
* Understand how remote patient monitoring fits within a hospital-at-home program. Identify patients who can benefit from remote monitoring and providers who support this type of care. Consider focusing on patients recently discharged who can walk out of the hospital with the technology tools in hand.
* Start with your lower-acuity patients first. Those who are taking up space in your infusion rooms and clinics for hydration, anti-emetics, and wellness checks-all services that can be provided safely in the home.
* When you are ready to administer chemotherapy in the home setting, focus on patients coming into the clinic multiple times a week or multiple times a month and then identify those medications and regimens that can be provided safely in the home.
Mitigating Workforce Shortages
On August 18, Dr. Penberthy hosted the second Tech Talk: "Technology Solutions to Mitigate the Oncology Workforce Shortage." Nearly 40 ACCC members attended the live call to discuss and learn about artificial intelligence (AI)- and business intelligence (BI)-enabled platforms in use at three ACCC member programs to help address workforce shortages across oncology pharmacy, nursing, front desk, billing and coding, and more.
A pharmacist shortage-coupled with the costs of adding full-time equivalents (FTE)s to an already lean clinical team-resulted in Northwest Medical Specialties in Tacoma, Wash., selecting the HouseRX technology platform to manage its medically integrated dispensing program. With this technology taking over resource-intensive tasks like prior authorizations, the benefit to staff was immediate, alleviating hours spent on the phone with payers and reducing stress and burnout. Northwest Medical Specialties also uses a care management tool, Canopy, to improve staffing and operational efficiencies. In addition to service ticketing, a centralized worklist with smart routing and filtering capabilities, the platform offers triage pathways and ePROs (electronic patient-reported outcomes).
To address "back of the house" operations to stay fiscally sound, Michiana Hematology Oncology in South Bend, IN, outsourced its revenue cycle management to the AC3 BI platform, allowing the practice to realize every dollar owed by payers. For Michiana Hematology Oncology, investment in this technology increased net collections by 2 percent, reduced cost per claim by 31 percent, and increased cash collection efficiency by 22 percent. More, the technology continues to grow and evolve, as the addition of a retro-auditing feature allowed the practice to recover $2.8 million in payer-related underpayments and missed drug-related billing.
To help mitigate its workforce shortages and improve operational efficiency, Kentucky's St. Elizabeth Healthcare adopted a real-time location system with color-based way-finding technology. Every patient, staff member, and room are tagged, so the healthcare system can track cancer center activities in real time and develop an "air traffic control-like response" when issues arise. Bottlenecks are immediately visible, allowing for real-time solutions like freeing up exam room space or re-assigning staff. Faced with a shortage of front desk staff, this technology allowed the healthcare system to do away with both in-person check-ins and waiting rooms-a major patient satisfier.
The final two Tech Talks, "Applying a Health Equity Lens to Implementing Remote Patient Monitoring" and "The Impact of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence on Oncology," are happening in November 2022 and January 2023, respectively. Email mailto:[email protected] to reserve your seat in these robust, small-group discussions.
Connect With ACCC
* Find resources online: http://accc-cancer.org
* Learn about membership: mailto:[email protected]