Clinician Perspectives on Barriers and Enablers to Implementing an Inpatient Oncology Early Warning System: A Mixed-Methods Study

PURPOSE To elicit end-user and stakeholder perceptions regarding design and implementation of an inpatient clinical deterioration early warning system (EWS) for oncology patients to better fit routine clinical practices and enhance clinical impact. METHODS In an explanatory-sequential mixed-methods study, we evaluated a stakeholder-informed oncology early warning system (OncEWS) using surveys and semistructured interviews. Stakeholders were physicians, advanced practice providers (APPs), and nurses. For qualitative data, we used grounded theory and thematic content analysis via the constant comparative method to identify determinants of OncEWS implementation. RESULTS Survey respondents generally agreed that an oncology-focused EWS could add value beyond clinical judgment, with nurses endorsing this notion significantly more strongly than other clinicians (nurse: median 5 on a 6-point scale [6 = strongly agree], interquartile range 4-5; doctors/advanced practice providers: 4 [4-5]; P = .005). However, some respondents would not trust an EWS to identify risk accurately (n = 36 [42%] somewhat or very concerned), while others were concerned that institutional culture would not embrace such an EWS (n = 17 [28%]). Interviews highlighted important aspects of the EWS and the local context that might facilitate implementation, including (1) a model tailored to the subtleties of oncology patients, (2) transparent model information, and (3) nursing-centric workflows. Interviewees raised the importance of sepsis as a common and high-risk deterioration syndrome. CONCLUSION Stakeholders prioritized maximizing the degree to which the OncEWS is understandable, informative, actionable, and workflow-complementary, and perceived these factors to be key for translation into clinical benefit.