A preliminary study conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham has found connecting cancer patients with lay navigators — trained non-clinical guides — can dramatically reduce overall costs during the course of treatment.
Lay navigators act as point people for patients, fielding questions from them and providing information and advice that leads to a decrease in unnecessary ER visits and inpatient ICU days. UAB's Patient Care Connect Program, which utilizes lay navigation, has also reported the earlier adoption of hospice care, reduced use of chemotherapy in the last two weeks of life and overall quality of life improvement for cancer patients as a result of the program, according to a statement from Edward Partridge, MD, director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center and principal investigator of the study.
The study was based on the premise that coordinating how cancer diagnoses are managed leads to decreases in overall costs.
"Our trained navigators help address the barriers patients often have with identifying resources for their care and empower them to recognize clinical symptoms, become more knowledgeable about their disease and treatment, and when necessary engage in end-of-life discussion with their providers," Gabrielle Rocque, MD, assistant professor in the UAB Division of Hematology and Oncology and medical director of the Patient Care Connect Program, said in a statement.
Here are five important points noted by the researchers:
• Cost reductions in the last six months of life from $23,735 to $16,764 per patient in the navigated group, compared to cost increases ranging from $13,418 to $15,544 in the non-navigated group.
• Overall Medicare cost reduction per patient in the navigated group ranged from $15,091 to $8,269 per quarter — a Medicare cost savings of $6,822 per patient.
• ER visits decreased from 30.7 percent to 21.8 percent for the navigated group compared to a decrease from 14.6 percent to 13.7 percent for the non-navigated group.
• ICU admissions decreased from 10 percent to 4 percent in the navigated group opposed to a change from 2.5 percent to 1.7 percent for the non-navigated group.
• Hospitalization rates decreased from 35.8 percent to 16.1 percent for the navigated group compared to a decrease from 10.8 percent to 7.5 percent in the non-navigated group.
More articles on patient care:
Cost of cancer care climbs: 5 things to know
Medical homes and shared saving interventions: 5 effects on quality, utilization
Higher post-acute care costs linked with lower survival rates in study