CHI Health Good Samaritan Cancer Center

CHI Health Good Samaritan Cancer Center, Kearney, Nebraska, is a 268-bed non-for-profit community hospital located in a rural setting. The cancer center provided treatment to 496 new patients in 2014.

CHI Health Good Samaritan Cancer Center started developing its distress screening program in 2009 after the site participated in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP). Screening is accomplished at different touch points. Outpatient radiation oncology patients are screened at their first visit to Radiation Oncology and at the first visit of each successive month. In the chemotherapy infusion center, patients are screened at their first visit and at each subsequent chemotherapy visit—but not more than weekly. For inpatients with cancer, the cancer center nurse navigators complete screening with the Distress Thermometer (without the Problem List) sometime during the admission process.

Read an in-depth description of the distress screening process at CHI Health Good Samaritan Cancer Center. Read the complete project white paper, "Psychosocial Distress Screening: Lessons Learned from Three ACCC Member Programs."

Click on image below to enlarge or download distress screening process flowchart here.