Pharmaceutical & healthcare

Pharmaceutical Oncology Initiative Partnership (POIP) modeling tool

The uptake of cancer drugs within the UK remains significantly behind that of other European countries with large, local variations in patient access across the country. A report from the National Cancer Director to the Secretary of State for Health concluded that variations were due to constraints in service capacity and differences in clinical practice. He recommended the creation of a chemotherapy capacity planning tool. The Pharmaceutical Oncology Initiative Partnership (POIP) was formed, and it commissioned A.T. Kearney to create and roll-out this innovative tool.

Challenge
After thorough analysis and interviews with over 1,000 stakeholders, A.T. Kearney concluded that capacity planning in chemotherapy requires a capacity planning simulator that models the different chemotherapy processes found in the NHS and the uncertainties inherent to these clinical processes.

Approach
A phased approach was used to design and build the model, and then the prototype tool was piloted in six regions. Using the feedback from the pilots, an improved version was developed for national roll-out, which was available online. This state-of-the art simulator is now being rolled out to support capacity planning chemotherapy units across the UK. C-PORT is named for Chemotherapy Planning Oncology Resource Tool.

Results
In addition to capacity planning, C-PORT is a powerful tool for process improvement and introduction of new therapies. The simulator not only provides an outlook on capacity and demand-based utilization at Trust level, but it also allows users to model the introduction and impact of new cancer regimens and drugs, assists the creation of business plans, simulates the impact of business process changes, and tracks patient waiting times.

C-PORT provides aggregated data from across England and enables performance benchmarking between units. The National Clinical Director for Cancer indicated that C-PORT should be used (and now has been implemented) to model the impact of new drugs being submitted for evaluation by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

Media highlights and additional information

Cancer team takes top innovation award
25 April 2008 – Kable
An IT project supporting the fight against cancer has won the big prize at the Government Computing Awards for Innovation 2008.

C-PORT Brochure
by the Pharmaceutical Onocology Initiative Partnership

C-PORT website
See background on its development