MSKCC’s service-based interdisciplinary team adheres to the four C’s of team-based care.
With a reputation synonymous with state-of-the-art cancer care, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) shouldn’t have much to prove.
But like most healthcare providers, with the dawn of value-based care, MSKCC began to face tougher competition from hospitals with managed care contracts and limited networks. To attract and retain payors, MSKCC had to demonstrate that its care was both cost-effective and cost-efficient.
“Under managed care, you had to be able to prove your worth,” explains Laura Ostrowsky, MSKCC’s director of case management. “And worth was more than just best care, it was best care in a quality-effective manner.”
To accomplish this, MSKCC adopted a multidisciplinary, team-based care coordination approach, Ms. Ostrowsky explained during Integrated Case Management: A New Approach to Transition Planning, an August 2017 webinar now available as an on-demand rebroadcast.
Transition planning used to be referred to as discharge planning, she noted.
Integrated case management is at the heart of MSKCC’s service-based strategy, with MSKCC case managers assigned by service. “That means that if a case manager is based on the tenth floor, which houses breast and GYN services, and one of those patients is in the ICU, they’re still being followed by the breast or GYN case manager.”
The variety of care settings is one of a half dozen reasons integrated case management is necessary, Ms. Ostrowsky added.
Communication among all team members is key, she continued, outlining the four ‘C’s’ of team-based care—so much so that some scripting has been created to keep all team members on message with patients.
However, a commitment to standards in communication and other areas should never override a patient’s need. “The clinical issues should always take priority,” Ms. Ostrowsky emphasized.
A day in the life of an MSKCC inpatient integrated case manager runs the gamut from reviewing and assessing new patients to orchestrating transition planning. “Our patients go out with all kinds of services, from infusion care to home chemotherapy to wound VACs.” Some patients are transferred to post-acute facilities, while others face end-of-life issues that include hospice care, which could be inpatient or home.
Hospice care was one area of focus for MSKCC—in particular, getting providers to speak frankly with patients about hospice and incorporating those services earlier on in the patient’s diagnosis when appropriate, both of which required a cultural shift. “Our patients didn’t come to Memorial to be told that there’s nothing that we can do for them,” she explained. “And our doctors didn’t come to work at Memorial to send people to hospice. They came here to cure cancer.”
In taking a closer look at end-of-life services, Ms. Ostrowsky found that physicians tended to refer to hospice later than she hoped that they would. “I wanted to really look at our length of stay in hospice as a way of identifying the timeliness of referral.” A longer hospice stay allows the patient to form relationships with their hospice caretakers rather than feeling abandoned and “left to die,” concluded Ms. Ostrowsky.
By placing case managers in inpatient areas and encouraging key case management-provider conversations that she shared during the program, MSKCC improved hospice referral timeliness and grew hospice length of stay. In turn, these quality improvements correlated with higher patient (and family) satisfaction.
Integrated case managers have also been key in identifying patients who can benefit from LTACH services and moving them there sooner, she added. “We can decrease length of stay within the hospital and get [patients] that kind of focused care that they need sooner.”
Listen to Laura Ostrowky describe the surprise question that can improve timeliness of hospice referrals.
