John Hennessy: If you have heard about time toxicity in oncology care, this manuscript shows a great example
Michelle Kirschner, , shared a post by
“John Hennessy thanks for sharing! Time toxicity was always considered as I created supportive care programs in my position as Director for Program Development for Survivorship and Supportive Services at the University of Cincinnati. Many supportive services such as navigation, survivorship, social work and psychosocial support can be done effectively through telehealth which reduces travel time to the cancer center.
It’s a shame that insurance coverage has become a problem for telemedicine post COVID. I also partnered with a sleep medicine physician to do the initial evaluation and once the sleep physician reviewed my note she ordered the sleep study. This completely eliminated an appointment for each day my patients that needed National Patient Safety Goals (NPSG).
Coordinated care goes an along way to reducing time toxicity. I even advocated for a patient when her breast and plastic surgeons couldn’t coordinate their schedules to provide both surgeries together. Since she had triple negative breast cancer, she ended up having neoadjuvant chemotherapy first and then her surgeons were able to coordinate their schedules to perform only one surgery. A big win overall but it definitely had an impact on time toxicity.”
Quoting John Hennessy’s post:
“If you have heard about time toxicity in oncology care, this manuscript shows a great example. 1 in 3 days at the end of life involved contact with the healthcare system. Even patients not having systemic therapy had significant interactions with the healthcare system. Patients value time at home with family, and so should the healthcare delivery system.”
Additional information.
Source: Michelle Kirschner/LinkedIn and John Hennessy/LinkedIn