Busy Patagonia cancer center achieves productivity goals with Elekta ONE
Digitization enhances patient care and user experience at the Leben Salud Centro Oncologico Integral (COI)
The increasing population in the Argentinian region of Northern Patagonia has resulted in a notable rise in cancer patients at Leben Salud Centro Oncologico Integral (COI, Neuquén, Patagonia). Each month, around 125 new patients undergo radiation therapy on COI’s Elekta linac and 400 new patients receive medical oncology services. To meet this rapid growth challenge head on, the center turned to Elekta ONE* Oncology Informatics Solutions. The software helped the COI team improve workflow efficiencies and manage their resources better, boosting productivity while maintaining high-quality care.
Having relied on Elekta ONE | OIS powered by MOSAIQ® for radiation oncology for the last decade, COI expanded their OIS offering to include medical oncology, as well as implemented Elekta ONE | Smart View, Planning, Patient QA and Patient Companion throughout the organization. Together, these fully integrated solutions helped COI create an efficient, paperless environment and achieve productivity levels that weren’t previously possible.
Optimizing patient throughput
The center has found Smart View to be particularly valuable for optimizing patient throughput. Featuring SmartBoards that allow teams to view, track and advance care path workflows for multiple patients from any location or device, the tool has enabled COI to minimize delays and work more efficiently.
“We need to follow our progress along the different tasks for each patient and SmartBoards are a great solution that allows us to do this.”
“Our radiotherapy patient volume has more than doubled, so increased productivity is absolutely necessary for us,” explains COI Technical Director and Head of Medical Physics, Ricardo Ruggeri, M.Sc. “We need to follow our progress along the different tasks for each patient and SmartBoards are a great solution that allows us to do this.
“For example, when delivering HDR brachytherapy, it is important to obtain all the disease characteristics, laboratory results, and perform other necessary investigations before starting treatment. This takes a lot of coordination. Through SmartBoards, we can follow and coordinate all these different tasks for each patient, allowing us to treat five patients per day with HDR brachytherapy, supported by 3 Tesla MRI-based planning. This would not have been possible without Smart View.”
The introduction of digital workflows through Elekta ONE OIS has also helped the COI medical oncology department to improve resource management and scheduling, allowing them to greatly increase their clinic efficiency and capacity.
“Today, we can treat double the volume of patients in the same space.”
“We now organize the chemotherapy chair schedule using Elekta ONE OIS,” Ruggeri remarks. “Today, we can treat double the volume of patients in the same space because the system allows us to easily organize the different treatment schedules on each couch. Before, with paper, it was impossible to achieve this level of productivity.”
Advanced interoperability
Elekta ONE OIS is an open system that connects to other hospital systems through industry standard interfaces, such as DICOM, HL7 and FHIR, to provide real-time information sharing across devices, platforms, and even between facilities. This, together with the fully integrated Elekta ONE software environment, reduces manual workloads and duplication of effort, saving time and connecting decision makers to the data they need without delay.
“Previously, we needed three weeks to complete the simulation to treatment process… now, we only need 15 minutes.”
“The interoperability of our equipment and software solutions is really important,” says Ruggeri. “For example, we have many different types of diagnostic equipment, including nine MRI scanners, seven CT scanners, and PET-CT. Imaging data and associated simulation information – including DICOM images, anatomical contours, and fused multimodal datasets – are transferred directly to Elekta ONE OIS and Planning. Previously, we needed three weeks to complete the simulation-to-treatment process, which included image import, contouring, and plan verification. Now, we only need 15 minutes, dramatically reducing patient wait times.”
“Having such an integrated oncology software environment has been really important for our concept of comprehensive cancer care,” Ruggeri continues. “All of our up-to-date patient information is found by all the solutions in the Elekta ONE ecosystem through integration with Elekta ONE OIS. Not only that, but the interoperability of the OIS with other hospital systems allows us to import important information into OIS. This interoperability has been essential for implementing a totally digital environment at our institution. Now our oncology service is completely paperless throughout radiation oncology and medical oncology.”
“This interoperability has been essential for implementing a totally digital environment at our institution.”
Improved user experience
Removing the paperwork burden from staff not only saves them time, but it also has a positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing. “Burnout is a real problem for healthcare staff now,” comments Ruggeri. “As they care for patients, they don't need excessive paperwork on their minds. With the Elekta ONE solutions, they’ve been able to confidently place this burden on the software. Of course, it's necessary to create the correct workflows within OIS, but this isn’t so difficult and the benefits are great.”
Cancer centers have the flexibility to customize Elekta ONE OIS workflows to meet their specific needs, including creating schedules tailored to different departments. With advanced automation and smart user interfaces, manual tasks are significantly reduced, enhancing the overall user experience.
"Today, having a paperless environment is not just enjoyable — it's essential for us. Looking back, it's hard to imagine how we ever managed without it."
Ruggeri concludes, "Today, having a paperless environment is not just enjoyable — it's essential for us. Looking back, it's hard to imagine how we ever managed without it. In my opinion, the flexibility of the Elekta ONE ecosystem is key to the future of cancer care."
For more information about the unified software experience available with Elekta ONE, click here.
*Elekta ONE is comprised of multiple Elekta solutions, some of which may not yet be available in all markets.
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