WHAT WE FOUND:Length of stay and time to surgery were significantly reduced after implementation of this admission pathway. Readmission rate was not adversely affected by this change. The protocol also significantly reduced the number of unnecessary body computed tomography imaging studies obtained in this patient population.
CONFOUNDING FACTORS/REAL-LIFE IMPLICATIONS:The results of this study should be interpreted with their retrospective nature in mind. Further, analysis of this admission pathway did not take into consideration patient perspective or cost implications. Finally, the authors recognize that the resources for such an operational shift may only be found in large, tertiary, referral centers.
Optimized specialized care for patients with new single brain masses promotes improved health care outcomes. It may also predictively reduce health care costs and improve patient satisfaction. More research is needed in this field. Limitations to our study included the inherent limitations of a retrospective pre-post design that can make it difficult to separate the effect of a specific intervention from other factors that change over time. In addition, assessment of patient satisfaction, use of diagnostic tests beyond body imaging, and advanced cost analysis could have strengthened this study. Lastly, it should be noted that the applicability of our approach may be limited to major tertiary centers with enough resources to implement such a pathway.
Purpose:To reduce care variation and improve the management of patients with newly identified single brain masses and no history of cancer, we implemented a dedicated admission protocol.
Methods:We reviewed records of 206 patients who presented to our emergency department between January 2010 and May 2016 with a new single brain mass but no history of cancer. Patients admitted before the protocol implementation were designated the pre-implementation group (PRE), and those admitted after implementation were designated the post-implementation group (POST).
Results:Ninety-six patients were in the PRE group and 110 in the POST group. Length of stay for POST patients was significantly shorter than for PRE patients (6 v 7 days, respectively; P = .042), and this effect was more robust after excluding the 66 patients who were discharged to rehabilitation, skilled nursing, or hospice facilities (5 v 7 days, respectively; P = .001). Additional comparison of POST with PRE patients showed that time to surgery was significantly reduced (2.7 v 3.5 days, respectively; P = .006) and that computed tomography scans of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis were reduced (12% v 47%, respectively; P < .001). No difference was found in the 30-day readmission rates. For patients with GBM, there also was no significant difference in time to initiation of chemoradiation or in median overall survival.
Conclusion:Implementation of a specialized admission pathway for patients with a new single brain mass decreased average length of hospital stay and time to surgery and reduced unnecessary diagnostic imaging tests in patients with primary brain tumors.
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) , 2019. Vol. 15, no 3, p. e211-e218