The Midwest health system has developed new algorithms to help its nurse navigators manage their workflows, reducing stress and burnout and improving care management for cancer patients.
OSF Healthcare has designed an AI platform that improves care management for cancer patients by monitoring and adjusting the workflows of nurse navigators.
The Illinois-based health system developed an algorithm that combs through the electronic health record platform and other data sources to map out each cancer patient's journey for the coming week, including new patients. The technology then assigns the new patients to nurse navigators according to characteristics like cancer specialty and a care navigator's existing workload.
The platform not only improves care management for patients by ensuring they're matched with the most appropriate navigator, but also reduces stress and burnout among navigators by helping them manage their workloads.
"Our cancer patient nurse navigators are highly dedicated, and their workload can sometimes be overwhelming," Jonathan Handler, a senior fellow in innovation for OSF Healthcare, said in a press release. "They never want to shortchange the patient, so they shortchange themselves, working extra hours and sacrificing their own well-being to help patients. We hope our system can even out those workloads and improve their work-life balance."
The technology was developed by a team that consisted of researchers from OSF Healthcare and the OSF Innovation group, the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. It was funded by a grant from Jump ARCHES (Applied Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation), a collaborative that includes OSF Healthcare, the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The team's work was recently published in the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Journal of Cancer Informatics (JCO). That report noted that this may be the first time a project like this focused on the individual—including anticipated patient needs, navigator experience, and existing workload--rather than shifts, and the model they created "significantly outperforms the random distribution approach that approximates our current distribution methodology."
"Better workload management may reduce CPN burnout and lead to more effective and efficient navigation assistance for patients with cancer, allowing greater scalability of this vital resource to all oncology patients in need, regardless of geography," the study concluded.
The health system will next introduce the technology into its cancer care program through its OSF Community Connect workflow automation platform.
Eric Wicklund is the associate content manager and senior editor for Innovation at HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Nurse navigators are a vital resource to cancer patients, helping to coordinate and manage care during stressful times.
These navigators are often stressed themselves, and don’t properly manage their workloads because they don't want to disrupt or change patient routines.
OSF Healthcare has developed AI technology that takes into account a navigator's current workload and duties anticipated in the week ahead, then assigns new patients based on data such as cancer type and prior healthcare utilization.