In October, Philadelphia-based Fox Chase Cancer Center earned the Association of Community Cancer Centers’ Innovator Award for its ACE care model.
Developed and led by Fox Chase nurses, the model was designed to improve efficiency, care coordination and patient outcomes within ambulatory cancer care, according to an Oct. 17 news release from the cancer center.
Anna Liza Rodriguez, MSN, RN, chief nursing officer and vice president of nursing and patient services at Fox Chase, recently joined the “Becker’s Healthcare Podcast” to share more about how the model has changed patient outcomes and streamlined care.
Here is an excerpt from the conversation:
Editor’s note: This response was lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: When you look at the past year, what’s the most important initiative or achievement you led? What were the results?
Anna Liza Rodriguez: What my team and I are really most proud of is our ambulatory care excellence redesign. We call it the ACE model that really emphasizes interdisciplinary partnership and a holistic approach to patient care in our cancer center. The model is a more structured approach designed to look at the efficiency, coordination and patient outcomes in the ambulatory space, while focusing on top-of-license work for all of the care team members.
It has really improved care coordination. Our patients experience better continuity of care because now we have nurses who have adequate time in handling follow-ups, medication management and care planning. We’ve also experienced reduced delays in our clinics through the standardization of our workflows. We now have prep-for-clinic time for our nurses so that they can ensure that critical task results and records are completed before appointments, so the appointment for the patient is meaningful and we’re minimizing delays. It truly has been a transformative approach, and it is something that we are implementing across all of our service lines in the cancer center.
Listen to the full conversation here.
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