*LungDirect lung screening tracking software is now a part of Eon Patient Management Solutions
Haywood Regional Medical Center, a 159-bed community hospital in Clyde, North Carolina, is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains right outside of Asheville. When Pulmonologist Dr. Scott Skibo joined Duke LifePoint in February 2017, his major focus was to grow the lung screening program and build a pulmonary incidentaloma clinic. In doing so, Haywood screened almost 400 high-risk patients and built a busy nodule clinic. All without a lung screening tracking software to track patients and they soon realized they needed a better solution.
Amanda Franklin, Dr. Skibo’s RRT, received biweekly emails from radiology for some incidentally identified patients and a daily email of the screening low dose CT’s performed. After receiving the list, she would contact both the patient and their PCP to inform them of the findings and recommended follow-up. Amanda tracked patients on a color-coded Excel spreadsheet and used calendar reminders for follow-up, and she reports spending about 20 minutes per patient per touch, with a minimum of 4-5 touches per patient.
Haywood chose LungDirect* lung screening tracking software to streamline patient identification and track the longitudinal care of lung screening and pulmonary incidentaloma patients. “As a profession, the most powerful thing we can do is diagnose lung cancer early. By identifying patients at risk for developing lung cancer, LungDirect* is allowing us to do this in a powerful way. LungDirect* is doing what they said they would, this wasn’t just a whole bunch of words sold to us.”
Within one month of going live with LungDirect*, 23 incidental nodules were identified via LungDirect*’s proprietary dual-mechanism identification process. This represents a significant opportunity for Haywood Regional to diagnose more lung cancer early. Additionally, 396 screening patients’ records were submitted to the ACR via one-click submission, bringing Haywood into complete CMS compliance.
Amanda says compared to the old way of tracking patients, using LungDirect* is “incredibly efficient and easy to use.” She enjoys the fact that she can come in and review screening and incidental patients daily, and that the program is no longer reliant on other staff members to send her a list of patients. Amanda also enjoys the auto-populated letters within LungDirect* and does not miss going into Word to copy and paste patient information.
With LungDirect*, Dr. Skibo and Amanda are seeing greater efficiencies in patient identification and patient management, leading to faster intervention with the ultimate goal of diagnosing Lung Cancer at earlier stages.
