Development of a novel medical physics patient consult program

Abstract Purpose To develop a new patient consult program, where patients are invited to meet directly with a clinical medical physicist to learn and ask questions about the technical aspects of their care. Methods Patients are invited to meet voluntarily with a clinical medical physicist directly after the treatment planning CT appointment, and then again after treatment starts. Each consult starts with an overview of the clinical medical physicist’s role in patient care. This is followed by a detailed explanation of the treatment planning CT, treatment planning, and treatment delivery processes. Data are collected after each patient encounter, including: age, gender, treatment intent, treatment site, consult duration, discussion points, overall impression, and a summary of the questions asked. Qualitative data analysis focused on understanding the number and types of questions asked during the physics consults. Additional analyses focused on evaluating the encounter notes for interesting insights regarding meeting tone, number of meeting attendees, and other non-clinical discussion points. Results Sixty three patients were seen between August 2016 and December 2017, accounting for 29% of the total department patient load. The average physics consult duration was 24 minutes. When evaluating the patient encounter notes for overall tone, 55 patients (87%) had positive descriptors such as “pleasant conversation”. Thirty three patients (52%) brought at least one other person into the consult, and 27 patients (43%) contributed personal stories or professional background information to the conversation. When the collection of patient questions was grouped into question types, the data show that the majority of the consult discussion addresses questions related to treatment delivery, treatment planning, and other technical questions. Conclusions Incorporation of a medical physics patient consult program into clinical practice requires modest time commitment, and has the benefits of increasing medical physics engagement with patient care and improving patient satisfaction through better education.