Establishing a rapid assessment service for patients with suspected malignancies for expedited outpatient management

11% of new cancer diagnoses occur in the emergency department. Historically, these diagnoses disproportionately affect underserved patient populations and are associated with poor outcomes. This is an observational study of the Rapid Assessment Service (RAS) program, which aims to provide timely outpatient follow-up and facilitate a diagnosis for patients discharged from the emergency department with suspected malignancies.

We performed a retrospective chart review of 176 patients who were discharged from the emergency department with RAS clinic follow up between February 2020 and March 2022. We manually chart reviewed 176 records in order to determine the average time to RAS clinic appointment, average time to diagnosis, and the final diagnosis based on biopsy.

163 of 176 patients (93%) discharged to RAS received reliable follow-up care. 62 of the 176 patients (35%) followed up in the RAS clinic with a mean of 4.6 days. 46 of the 62 patients (74%) who followed up in the RAS clinic were ultimately diagnosed with a new cancer, with a mean time to diagnosis of 13.5 days. The leading new cancer diagnoses included: lung, ovarian, hematologic, head and neck, and renal cancers.

Creating a Rapid Assessment Service facilitated an expedited oncologic work-up and diagnosis in an outpatient setting.