Patient wait list management-comparison with RANZCR guidelines.

Abstract

Aim: Assess the impact of organizational machine activity numbers on Radiation Therapy Wait times as compared with guidelines recommended by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR)(1). Wait times are an important indicator of service quality, evidence suggests wait times impact on local control and survival due to stage shifts and tumour growth. Eligibility for Clinical Trials, distress, anxiety, and depression among patients. Methods and materials: Key data required for comparison with a 2012 RANZCR survey(1) includes the Ready for Care (RFC) Date, Radiotherapy course start date, radiation therapy booking date, intent of treatment, and ‘category’ based on clinical urgency. Categories are defined as Emergency, Urgent, or Standard. All data elements are recorded directly (via capture or transcription) into the Electronic Medical Record using ARIA® (Varian Medical Systems) as part of the radiation therapy. Results: Initially with a single linear accelerator in March 2012, a new department brought the second and third linear accelerators online for the organisation in August 2012 and February 2013 respectively. A total of 1925 courses were analysed and over a period of 25 months starting from March 2012. Invalid data was removed entirely from the raw data; examples of these include cases for which the RFC date was no longer valid due to changes to medical, personal or other information. Conclusion: The department was able to achieve on starting treatment within all measures of category and intent. Patients receiving radiation therapy with palliative intent are commencing their treatment within 2 days of the RFC, patients with radical intent within 5 days on average. Efforts to improve data collection continue within the organization with considerations to record objective data as outlined by RANZCR including CT simulation date, date of multi-disciplinary meeting, and date.