Ambulatory Celebrate Improvements Fair is a great opportunity to share improvement projects of any type – quality improvement, process improvement, etc. across Ambulatory operations.
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Creating an Ambulatory Infusion Space for Symptomatic Patients Under Investigation and Confirmed Covid-19 Positive Cancer Patients
Yvonnie P. Alcasabas and Mark C. Alonso
The aim of this project was to prevent disruption in oncology care by developing a dedicated treatment space for patients with a suspicion or confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 in an Ambulatory Treatment Center (ATC).
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Healthy Lifestyle Screening in the Breast Center
Juana Castaneda, Victoria McClosky, Valentina Renna, Lori Bailey, Susan Ferguson, Abenaa Brewster, Isabel Bedrosian, Lorenzo Cohen, and Gabriel Lopez
Following evidence-based cancer guidelines for diet and physical activity, a pilot project to conduct systematic LifeStyle Screening (LSS) and referral of new patients being seen in the Breast Multi-Team clinic.
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A Collaborative Effort to Implement Transfusion Services in the Woodlands Houston Area Location
Kristin Doyle, Regina Smith, Lourdes Lujan, Tennille Campbell, Kinjal Patel, Megan Phillips, and Lilli Ann Mauricio
This poster demonstrates a collaborative effort in implementing the process of blood product transfusions in the Woodlands Houston Area Location (HAL). All other HALs already had transfusions occurring and we needed to start the process in the Woodlands location. The poster outlines, from start to finish, how we utilized communication and resources in other departments to successfully launch transfusions in this location.
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Sepsis Awareness and Recognition in the Ambulatory Oncology Setting
Staci E. Eguia and Cori Kopecky
World Sepsis Day Measures to increase Sepsis Awareness and Recognition in the Ambulatory Oncology Setting
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Kinesthetic Teaching Devices to Decrease Anxiety
Dorothy E. Elrod-Joplin MBA-HC, BSN, RN, CEN, TNCC; Forlisa N. Nauling RN, CCRP; and Tenna K. Vogel BSN, RN, CPON
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Oral Oncolytics Standardization QI Project: Breast Service Line
Susan Ferguson, Natalie Sanchez, Tori McClosky, Regina Smith, and Abenaa Brewster
Oral oncolytic therapy as a breast cancer treatment allows chemo medications to be administered at home rather than by infusion within an ambulatory setting. Oral therapy has proven to be convenient, yet there are gaps within patient self-management, adherence, and education. However, the provider does not always know when the patient actually begins oral oncolytic treatment, based on when the patient’s prescription is available. Lab test and follow up results may be skewed based on variations between the order date and actual start date. Therefore, patient compliance is uncertain, causing concern for safe and effective management of oral oncolytic therapy. Additionally, there was a need to standardize the process for all breast patients seen in ambulatory areas (HAL’s & TMC). A nurse-led initiative was needed to benchmark the practices and develop a standardized operating procedure for breast cancer patients starting oral oncolytic treatment.
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Integration of Patient-Reported Outcomes into Survivorship Care
Katherine R. Gilmore, Patricia Chapman, Johnny Rollins, Soo-Hyun Lee-Kim, Justine Robinson, Ellen Mullen, Haleigh Mistry, Prachee Singh, Robin Coyne, Ana Nelson, William Osai, Karen Stolar, Susan Knippel, Danielle Fournier, Tamera Plair, Angela Peek, Lori Williams, and Maria Alma Rodriguez
Describes process of implementing electronic capture of patient reported outcomes for cancer survivors
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Advanced Practice Provider Alignment
Monica Janik and Cherie Plouff
This presentation describes the efforts to align the Houston Area Location Advanced Practice providers with their Texas Medical Center specialty departments.
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ATC Second-Sign Initiative
Theresa Johnson-Foreman, Carl Gay, Wendi Lee, Clarissa Collins, Melvin Rivera, Brian Nichols, Neelam Patel, Regina Smith, LaCrista Bishop, Victoria Obregon, Karla Garza, Brenda Brown, Cherie Plouff, and Claudine Jreissaty
This project is on an ATC Second-Sign Initiative. For this project, our team set out to increase the percentage of infusion appointments with signed chemotherapy orders at the time of appointment to meet the Ambulatory Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement (QAPI) metric of greater than 90%.
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Implementation of a Triage Nurse Role in a Surgical Oncology Clinic to Improve Patient Access to Care
Rachel McDonald, Eron Wahid, and Macaela Davis
In a surgical oncology clinic, Press Ganey scores have been unfavorable in regard to access to care. The aim of this project is to implement a Nurse Triage Role in order to increase the patient satisfaction mean scores in the Press Ganey Domain of Access to Care 3 Months, specifically for the access to staff by phone during and after clinic hours, by 10% for surgical oncology patients in the League City HAL by July 2022.
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Evaluation of a New Technical Support Process for Patients and Providers in the Virtual Setting
Clover J. Patterson and Diane Barber PhD, APRN
A growing body of evidence suggests that care delivered by the virtual platform can be safe and effective. However, digital health solutions need to be integrated into the patient pathway for optimal support as well as improving the patients experience.
The findings provided the evaluator an opportunity to learn what is working well for outcome effectiveness and what areas need improvement to achieve better outcomes, particularly with patient and provider satisfaction, access to care, and the overall usage of virtual follow-up among diverse patient populations.
The usefulness of the program evaluation can facilitate the critical integration of the nursing leadership role to advancing and delivering goal-concordant care in the virtual setting.
In regard to nursing implications, the utility of oncology providers are very instrumental and capable in providing collaborative leadership strategies.
In addition, nursing leaders are well-poised to incorporate the role of technology in inter-professional practice.
Future program evaluation should allow for dissemination with a robust use of program evaluation tools to other areas within the organization for process improvement initiatives.
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Improving MDASI Survey Response Rates for In-Person Survivorship Appointments
Whittney Thoman, Katherine Gilmore, Patricia Chapman, Kiera Hart, Karen Whitmore-Radford, and Alma Rodriguez
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Standardizing the Chemotherapy Call Back Process to Improve Patient Understanding of Therapy and Side Effects in Initial Treatment
Praise Thomas, Melody Pedro, Anna Shaik, and Alice Thomas
As new patients are scheduled for chemotherapy, it is imperative that they receive education on what to expect during therapy and how to manage the potential side effects.
A review of patient satisfaction scores for explanation of chemotherapy expectations and managing side effects were below the target goal for the Ambulatory Treatment Center (ATC) League City.
Aim - To develop a standardized telephone follow-up process for patients who have completed Cycle 1 Day 1 (C1D1) chemotherapy/immunotherapy.
Goal - To increase patient satisfaction related to the explanation of managing side effects and expectations during chemotherapy/immunotherapy and meet the target Top Box Score.
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Utilization of a Standardized Triage Template to Improve Patient and Provider Communication
Gabriele Urschel and Amanda Brink
Safely taking care of oncology patients enrolled in early phase clinical trials requires team members including the triage registered nurse (RN) and advance practice provider (APP) to work together to assess and treat patients’ cancer-related symptoms. The side effect profile of clinical trial drugs is often unknown due to their novel nature. Protocols often contain a list of prohibited medications. Therefore, it can be challenging for the RN to make symptom management recommendations to patients. For this reason, the RN and APP often have extensive communication prior to giving recommendations to the patient with an acute symptom, which delays patient care. In this study, we assessed the utilization of a standardized triage template (STT) to guide the RN in performing a comprehensive symptom assessment.
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Once Upon a Triage: A Thoracic Tale
Laura P. Ware, Jennifer L. Reed, Natalie A. Spears, Lakeisha T. Keller-Davis, Sarah K. Englehardt, Lindsay N. Santos, and Theresa A. Johnson
