Hurricane Katrina displaced nearly two-thirds of the residents of New Orleans. Among those displaced were cancer patients whose treatments were disrupted. Located just 60 miles from New Orleans, Pennington Cancer Center received patients with no records; phone and fax lines were down and treating physicians were unreachable.
Lessons learned post-Katrina led the radiation oncology treatment team to develop an easily implemented emergency chart system. The portable electronic medical record they developed provides patients with all of their “must-have” documents in a universal format, so that they may resume care as quickly as possible if displaced by a disaster.
Listen to a full recording of Pennington's presentation at the ACCC 30th National Oncology Conference. (Available to ACCC members only.)