Using Systems Engineering to Improve Patient Experience During Chemotherapy Visits

Participants:

Faculty/Clinicians/Staff: Amy Cohn, Brian Denton, Diane Drago, Christopher Friese, Seth Guikema, Corinne Hardecki, Carol McMahon, Kelly Procailo, Carolina Typaldos, Irene Turkewycz, Alon Weizer, Louise Salamin

Students: Hassan Abbas, Sarah Bach, Jeremy Castaing, Ajaay Chandrasekaran, Chhavi Chaudhry, Aaron Claussen, Alex Fauer, Christine Gonzalez, Lauren Hirth, Madalina Jiga, John Li, Kevin Li, Vera Lo, Brittany Lopez, Stephen Macpherson, Dale Malette, Pamela Martinez Villarreal, Andrea McAuliffe, Jonathon McCormick, Ian McKenzie, Alex Mize, Vanessa Morales, Justin Moss , Anna Munaco, Elizabeth Olin, Donald Richardson, Samantha Roth, Matt Rouhana, Meng Sang, Jordan Schebil, Matt See, Stephanie See, Chloe Smither, Brooke Szymanski, Hwon Tak, Allison Winnik, Gabriel Zayas-Caban, Jonathon Zhou

Project Contact: [email protected]

Project Synopsis:

In this project, we are focusing on a variety of ways to improve the experience of patients receiving outpatient chemotherapy at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. The project began by looking at how patients are scheduled for their infusion treatment. We quickly learned that the actual infusion treatment is only one step in a far more complicated process. When a patient comes in to receive their chemotherapy, they start by having their blood drawn. Then the lab has to process the blood test so that when they visit the clinic to see their oncologist, the oncologist has their blood results. This allows the oncologist to make a treatment decision and place an order with the pharmacy so that the drugs can be mixed. Only after all those steps are completed can the patient actually receive the chemotherapy. We discovered that potential roadblocks exist at every step in this process. We have worked with the Rogel Cancer Center to study this complex system and to improve patient experience.

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