Stories of Impact

St Vincent's Hospital: Improving Healthcare at St Vincent's

St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne delivers compassionate, professional care and we continually pursue excellence in meeting the needs of people in our community through pioneering new medical procedures and by providing basic health checks for those who are marginalised.

The Breast Unit Database (BRENDA) captures breast patients' clinical data and tracks their ongoing survival rates. This data is benchmarked against established key performance indicators in the field. By comparing our performance to these benchmarks, we can identify areas for improvement and ensure the Breast Surgery Unit is delivering the highest quality of care. BRENDA goes beyond traditional clinical data by capturing Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs). PROMs are standardised questionnaires that ask patients about their experiences and well-being after treatment. Research has consistently shown that regularly evaluating PROMs leads to improved patient care, outcomes and quality of life.

In our own clinical experience at SVHM, PROMs have proven to be invaluable tools. The data they provide allows our surgeons and clinicians to personalise care for each patient. By pinpointing specific areas of need identified through PROMs, we can tailor treatment plans to better address each patient's unique circumstance and priorities.

Overall, BRENDA serves as a powerful platform and clinical tool for continuous improvement in breast cancer care at SVHM, aligning with the principles of value-based healthcare. By leveraging both clinical data and patient-reported experiences, BRENDA empowers us to deliver the most effect and personalised care possible for our patients.

Since its launch in January 2023, the Breast Unit Database (BRENDA) has data from over 270 patients already entered into the system. The completion rate for patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), which serves as a vital clinical tool for our Breast Surgeons, is around 60-70%, which sits at a higher than the expected rate for this type of collection method. This enables our Breast Surgeons to personalise and optimise breast cancer treatments, streamline processes, and minimize side effects, providing our patients with the best possible care and outcomes.

The BRENDA database represents a pioneering effort at SVHM in the field of breast cancer research, facilitating the collection of comprehensive patient data and PROMS, which will undoubtedly lead to a more in-depth understanding of breast cancer treatment and its outcomes.

Our experience with BRENDA has been transformative as it is empowering our surgeons and clinicians to deliver truly personalised care. By pinpointing each patient's specific needs and priorities as identified by the PROMs, we are able to tailor clinical care to achieve optimal outcomes that are directly relevant to each patient's unique circumstances. 

BRENDA will continue to gather and analyse patient data, offering valuable insights into surgical and treatment outcomes at SVHM's Breast Surgical Unit. Using comprehensive data collected, we can provide a thorough, unbiased assessment of the unit's performance against key national and international benchmarks.

What sets our initiative apart is collecting patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). These well-established metrics provide valuable insights beyond traditional clinical measures, focusing on patient well-being, a critical aspect of quality care not routinely collected in day-to-day clinical practice at SVHM. Translation of PROMs into different languages will allow more patients to contribute and will facilitate more inclusive care of non-English speaking patients. Our PROMs are currently translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Greek, Italian, Turkish and Farsi.

Furthermore, this dataset will be a significant resource for researchers to conduct further studies on breast cancer. A meticulously maintained, regularly cleaned dataset is an invaluable research goldmine. The REDCap platform is also easily searchable, which will enable the analysis and exploration of potential new research avenues, ultimately leading to improved treatments and patient outcomes in breast cancer. (Note: new projects using this database as a resource will require a separate ethics application, ensuring responsible and ethical data use.) 

For more information about St Vincent's Hospital go to  https://www.svhm.org.au/ 

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