Improving rates of referrals for fertility preservation among adult patients with cancer.

Authors

Edward Maldonado

Edward Maldonado

University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Edward Maldonado, Saya Jacob, Meera Vimala Ragavan, Vanessa Elaine Kennedy, Justice Dahle, Rahul Banerjee, Hilary Chan, Amy M. Lin, Ana I. Velazquez Manana

Organizations

University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

Research Funding

No funding received
None.

Background: Urgent fertility preservation (FP) represents a critical unmet need for patients of child-bearing potential undergoing cancer-directed therapies. A retrospective review of electronic medical record (EMR) based FP referrals placed prior to initiation of systemic cancer-directed therapies in patients aged 18-50 years, identified only 26 referrals to urology and 2 referrals to reproductive endocrinology during 2020. To address this issue, we conducted a division-wide survey to identify barriers to FP and designed and implemented a new FP referral EMR order set to facilitate timely fertility evaluation in patients about to begin cancer-directed therapy. Methods: We conducted a division-wide survey of faculty and fellows to identify barriers to FP (PDSA cycle 1), which identified that 50% of respondents did not know how to make a referral and 85% did not know the correct pre-requisite labs. Based on these results, we gathered multi-stakeholder input from reproductive endocrinology, urology, and stakeholders from different hematology/oncology disease groups to develop and design a common FP referral EMR order set (PDSA 2). The FP order set was tested and refined based on stakeholder input. Once the order set was implemented, we gave educational presentations at division-wide and disease group-specific conferences, placed informational flyers throughout the Cancer Center, and Cancer Center-wide communications via email to increase provider awareness (PDSA 3). The primary objective of the study was to increase in number of referrals for FP evaluation in patients aged 18-50 years undergoing cancer-directed therapy. We tracked number of FP referrals pre and post-intervention using EMR data. Results: In PDSA Cycle 2 and 3, the number of referrals increased further to 62 for urology and 35 for reproductive endocrinology. Of those referred, 35/97 (36.1%) were female. Regarding race/ethnicity, the largest percentage of patients referred identified as White and Asian with the lowest percentage being of Southwest Asian/North African or Black/African American (see Table 1). Conclusions: The development and implementation of a FP order set greatly increased the number of patients who underwent fertility evaluation prior to starting cancer-directed therapy. We did identify differences in groups with regards to referral rates with fewer women being referred, and fewer number of racial/ethnic minorities being referred. Further analysis is needed to identify potential areas of intervention to increase referrals and access to FP, particularly in under-represented groups.

Race/ethnicity of patients referred for fertility preservation.

Ethnicity/RaceEgg PreservationSperm PreservationTotal (n=97)
White133144
Asian81321
Latinx9716
Multi-Racial077
Southwest Asian and North African404
Black/African-American033
Other/Unknown112

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Abstract Details

Meeting

2023 ASCO Quality Care Symposium

Session Type

Poster Session

Session Title

Poster Session A

Track

Quality, Safety, and Implementation Science,Cost, Value, and Policy,Patient Experience,Survivorship

Sub Track

Quality Improvement Research and Implementation Science

Citation

JCO Oncol Pract 19, 2023 (suppl 11; abstr 462)

DOI

10.1200/OP.2023.19.11_suppl.462

Abstract #

462

Poster Bd #

K20

Abstract Disclosures

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