As the Executive Vice President, Value-Based Care and Quality Programs at Texas Oncology, Dr. Wilfong understands the challenges care providers face and shared how Navigating Cancer’s patient-relationship platform transformed care for his team and their patients. His webinar, entitled “Navigating Cancer: Improving Patient Outcomes: An Integrated and Intelligent PRM Platform,” was presented at the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) 47th Annual Meeting & Cancer Center Business Summit.
Texas Oncology operates 210 locations across the state of Texas, with more than 500 physicians serving their patients. To reduce hospitalization and emergency department visits among their patients, Dr. Wilfong and his team realized that they needed to work more efficiently and improve their triage processes. Texas Oncology started its transformation by integrating Navigating Cancer’s Triage system first. Here’s an overview:
How do we reduce hospitalizations and emergency department visits?
Texas Oncology patients frequently complained about how long it took the clinic to call them back when they left messages during the day. Often, it was the end of the day before they got answers to their questions. Dr. Wilfong and his team partnered with Navigating Cancer to explore how they could: streamline documentation for better reporting, use their staff more effectively and improve their triage system to manage patient symptoms in a more timely fashion.
Navigating Cancer’s Care Management platform has improved incident resolution time and reduced ER visits
Navigating Cancer’s Care Management platform helps ensure patients get answers in a timely manner. When a patient calls Texas Oncology, their concerns are reported to the operator who answers the phone. The incident appears on a shared dashboard, where the appropriate team member can quickly respond. For patients with health concerns, Triage Nurses are able to quickly prioritize and provide symptom management. Homecare instructions and treatment recommendations are sent to the patient remotely.
Texas Oncology realized a
33% improvement in incident resolution time
60% of their incidents are now
resolved in less than 1 hour
Streamlined documentation leads to operational efficiency, allowing the team to respond to more call volume. An improved triage system leads to better symptom management. When symptoms are managed more effectively, there are fewer visits to the emergency room.