“This represents a rare opportunity to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes” said Panattoni, noting that investment in sharing best practices and new models of care will likely be necessary to make a significant difference. The median cost per visit of preventable cancer-related symptoms was $1,047 compared to a median cost per visit of $335 for symptoms related to a chronic health condition. Overall, the study indicated a higher median cost per visit for cancer patients compared with the cost of visits as a result of other chronic health conditions. Fever and difficulty breathing were the next two most common reasons that brought patients to the ED, each at 6 percent. In fact, visits due to pain amounted to 27 percent of overall visits and had a median cost per visit of $1,127. The study revealed that the most common reason cancer patients visited an ED was due to pain. “At a time when federal authorities and private payers are linking insurance payments to hospital quality measures, this study points to the importance of developing methods to accurately identify those ED visits that are preventable versus those that are appropriate,” Panattoni commented. The share of potentially preventable visits rose to 70 percent when Panattoni expanded the standard to include other common patient complaints, as well as symptoms associated with chronic health conditions. Using a list of symptoms that federal health authorities identified as preventable, combined with symptoms targeted by patient-reported outcome tools, the researchers found that slightly more than half of these ED visits - 53 percent - were related to symptoms that could be managed with timely care in an outpatient setting. Panattoni and her colleagues tallied 2,400 ED visits by these 1,581 cancer patients and then set about analyzing whether they could have been prevented. Out of that population, 27 percent, or 1,581 patients, visited the ED without being admitted in the year after starting treatment. The study began with data from 5,853 commercially insured patients who were 18 years or older, diagnosed with a solid tumor and treated with chemotherapy, radiation, or both. Panattoni is scheduled to present these findings at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago on June 5 at 9:24 a.m. “Managing nausea, pain, dehydration, diarrhea and other symptoms in an outpatient setting has great potential to improve patient experience and decrease the cost of care.” “My hope is that seeing this data will promote innovative thinking and investment in how oncology teams manage patient symptoms,” Panattoni said. Laura Panattoni, a staff scientist at the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research, or HICOR, and colleagues followed cancer patients in 13 Western Washington counties with solid tumors whose treatment included chemotherapy, radiation or both. SEATTLE – – As many as 53 percent of cancer patients’ Emergency Department visits that do not require admission could be avoided with better symptom management and greater availability of outpatient care tailored to their needs, according to a new study from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.Īlthough a number of studies have addressed the prevalence of ED visits among cancer patients, this is the first to systematically identify potentially preventable ED visits during treatment. Viruses, Vaccines and Infectious Diseases. Institutional Partners & Collaborations.Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division.
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