Start Spreading the News

What a rewarding month I've had!  I’m seeing signs of achieving our two goals:  shortening our wait times, and engaging other physicians in this initiative.

I started February with a visit to Calgary to present our Advanced Access experience.  The audience was very receptive. (Admittedly, their attendance at conference pre-selected them as having an interest in this topic, but still…)   As I mentioned last time, Alberta is already showing great results in their prostate cancer care access project.

On my return, Karen unveiled our latest 3rd next available appointment data:

Is this the time we shift to a new stable system of shorter wait times?  It looks promising!

Alberta Bound

Last week, I had the opportunity to present some of our Advanced Access results at a Prostate Cancer conference in Calgary. Alberta has a province-wide initiative to improve prostate cancer care, and the theme of this conference was improving access. While I was pleased to present our experience with a single aspect of improving access (pooled referrals from family physicians), I'm sure that I learned more than I contributed.

Calgary has developed a Rapid Access Clinic (RAC) for men suspected of having prostate cancer. Men sent to the RAC (a somewhat unfortunate acronym) can be assessed and have tests and biopsies completed in under 2 weeks rather than the previous standard of 3 months. Great work!

Another innovative part of RAC (really guys, let's work on that acronym!) is the group information session. When a man's prostate biopsy shows prostate cancer, he and his family need a lot of information about the nature of the disease and treatment options. In my practice, I generally book a 45-minute appointment to discuss this. This week, I've had 4 such sessions. That eats up a lot of office visit capacity.

In Calgary, men are invited to attend a group information session presented by several specialists, including a urologist and radiation oncologist. Offered several times a month, this program is an effective way to present consistent and comprehensive information using a standard curriculum. After this session, men are better prepared for a private discussion with their own urologist.

Blog's Breakfast

Here’s a smorgasbord of our recent results. Bon appetit!

It looks like we’re back in the swing of things after the holidays. The number of backlog patients seen was really down in November and December, coinciding with many of our group being away on vacation. We have a goal of seeing 60 backlog patients every week, and we topped that last week. First time in 5 months!

Back in November, we got excited about the 3rd next available appointment times dropping. We were disappointed to see the line climb back up again. Well, here we go again. The latest 3NAA has dropped “significantly”, but will it stay down?  Stay tuned!

At our team meeting yesterday, we reviewed some preliminary results from measuring recall intervals.  For the last few weeks, we’ve been tracking how frequently our urologists recall patients for office visits. We’re recording 3, 6, and 12-month recall intervals. I was surprised to see that I had a high number of 3-month recalls. So much for setting an example!

Darwin's Cystoscope

What's wrong with this picture?

This is the printer ink cartridge aisle at my local office supply store. Or rather, it's just one brand's section of cartridges.

This...

...is the entire aisle. (Actually just one side of it!)

Do I need so many choices? Are these even choices? I spent several minutes hunting for the particular cartridge that suits my printer model. Finally, I had to ask for help. (I'm a guy. That hurt!)

I just want my printer to work. Having to pick through all these cartridges is a nuisance.

I'd be happier with this experience:

"Hi. I need an ink cartridge for my Nagamatsu BG154."

"Here you go."

"Um, are you sure? It looked like you just grabbed the first cartridge that was handy."

"I sure did. Nagamatsu only makes one type of cartridge."

Sometimes "choice" is just noise. Clutter. Fruitless variation. Muda.

Naturally, shopping for ink cartridges makes me think about inserting tubes up urethras.