Multiple facilities are encountering barriers in relation to their office of community care consults, and FHCC is one of them. A surplus of consults being entered is contributing to delays in facilitating the consults in the community, leading to delays in patient care and creating patient safety events.

RN Minniear is the local Cancer Care Coordinator and worked in an area that required the utilization of community care resources for the continuation of care. RN Minniear took ownership of the consults she was familiar with by collaborating with the office of community in relation to tracking, obtaining patient preference, appointment scheduling details, appointment status, records request, and providing requested records. All of these were items outside of her designated workload. RN Minniear identified there were additional consults, such as PET scans and biopsies being entered, which she was unfamiliar with and she was not comfortable not being able to collaborate with community care. Patients slipping through the cracks due to the number of consults made RN Minniear feel distressed for the patients.

RN Minniear vocalized her concerns to the office of community care staff. Among the staff was a resource employee who also worked in the department of informatics. This staff member was able to create an alert for RN Minniear, and moving forward all PET Scan, Biopsy, and Cancer Care consults would be flagged for RN Minniear to review. Flagging these patients allowed RN Minniear to increase her surveillance and allowed for further tracking facility-wide. RN Minniear went above and beyond by creating a tracking mechanism for these patients and in collaboration with the office of community care ensured the tracked patients received timely care.

When patients did not schedule RN Minniear would call them to assist with scheduling, when patients needed records for their continued care RN Minniear would call to have them sent to FHCC. RN Minniear is inspirational she does not own this process, it belongs outside of her department, but she took ownership of these patients; she dedicated her time, resources, and care to ensure they are a priority. RN Minniear practices should be adopted by all specialties to ensure collaboration/ownership and dedication to our patient population. Quality recently audited 360 office of community care charts and of those consults, 50 delays were identified. Of the 50, only 1 was from the list of consults RN Minniear was assisting to monitor, all others on her list here addressed timely and ensured best practice in relation to care.

Through inquiries, she learned the process for the office of community care in order to help them help the patients. Once she was familiar with the process, she had comfort in collaborating and supporting this outside department in their process. RN Minniear not only relieved the workload for this area but supported the needs of these patients where a delay could be detrimental.

Preoccupation with Failure- RN Minniear embodied preoccupation with failure, she recognized the likelihood of delays occurring with the uptake of community care consults. RN Minniear was proactive vs reactive in embedding herself into the practices, growing familiarity, and creating her own workflow to monitor and assist our patients.

Deference to Expertise- RN Minniear recognized early on, in order to help she need to defer to the office of community care, learn their process, communicate with their staff, and adapt best practices to work cohesively with the outside department in order to ensure collaboration in communicating with the patients and their outside community consults.