For the duration of COVID-19, cancer pathways will be affected by the significant loss of elective capacity and increased risk of COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality for cancer patients Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT) has developed a simple, effective MDT recording process, using keywords, to support the tracking of patients who require treatment prioritisation, repeated clinical/MDT reviews and/or need adjustments to their treatment Following implementation in April, the percentage of MDT outcomes with keywords recorded was 79% in June and 77% for the first two weeks of July Analysis of the 3,680 MDT outcomes with at least one key word recorded showed that 96% had the 'intention to proceed' recorded For 59% patients, the decision was to 'proceed', 5% patients are being monitored, 3% patients have been deferred and 29% were 'closed' While this process adds time to busy MDTs, we hypothesise that it will support the tracking and safety-netting of thousands of cancer patients whose care has been affected by the pandemic The process could easily be implemented in other trusts and adapted for other specialties
Tracking cancer patients during COVID-19 using structured outcomes and keywords