Reducing colorectal cancer mortality: The e-Autopsy tool

60 Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains the second leading cause of cancer death in the US, despite the availability of highly effective screening and treatment modalities. Kaiser Permanente Southern California is a non profit integrated health care organization that serves 3.7 million socio-economically diverse members. Our region has developed a goal to reduce colorectal cancer mortality by 50% in the next decade, from our baseline measurement of 13.8 deaths/100,00 members to 6.9 deaths/100,000 members. Methods: A literature search was conducted by the evidence based services unit to identify interventions demonstrated in published literature to reduce CRC mortality. These interventions were used to develop a spread sheet to guide the e-Autopsy, an electronic medical records review of 50 cases of recent death with CRC that was conducted by a multi-specialty group of reviewers: physicians in primary care, medical and surgical oncology, and pathology. Records of patients who died were compared to the best practices identified in the literature review to measure how often care was not matching the best practices. Review and comments were tallied by a quality nurse and reviewed by a multi-disciplinary steering group. Results: Electronic record review revealed multiple areas of opportunity for focus: Improve screening rates; Reduce diagnostic errors in evaluation of anemia/abdominal complaints; Improve care co-ordination to reduce time to surgery and chemotherapy administration; Evaluate metastatic disease for resection; Improve rates of delivery of adjuvant chemotherapy; Engage patients in lifestyle modifications. Ongoing system wide metrics and a dashboard have been developed to monitor progress in each of these areas. The relevant chiefs of service groups have developed goals and work plans to improve these metrics, which are also monitored by a central quality steering committee. Conclusions: Electronic medical record "autopsy" review of deaths in the system can be used to find and demonstrate multiple areas of focus for quality improvement projects that will help support the ultimate big region wide goal of halving the deaths from colorectal cancer.