Improving Waiting Time for Chemotherapy with Ahead-of-Time Drug Preparation

Waiting time for chemotherapy infusion is a fundamental factor to measure quality of care. It has been shown that a prolonged waiting time is related to a higher incidence of anticipatory nausea and poor patient adherence to scheduled appointments and recommended oncology treatment programs. Some ch...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in health technology and informatics Vol. 310; p. 144
Main Authors Descalzo, Juan Marcos, Frutos, Eliana Ludmila, Castro, Javier, Lombardo, Victoria Regia, Gimenez, Cintia, Otero, Paula, Luna, Daniel, Otero, Carlos
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Netherlands 25.01.2024
Subjects
Cross-Sectional Studies
Drug Compounding
Health Facilities
Hispanic or Latino
Humans
Waiting Lists
pharmacy workflow
Waiting time
chemotherapy
quality improvement
oncology
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Summary:Waiting time for chemotherapy infusion is a fundamental factor to measure quality of care. It has been shown that a prolonged waiting time is related to a higher incidence of anticipatory nausea and poor patient adherence to scheduled appointments and recommended oncology treatment programs. Some chemotherapy regimens can be prepared hours ahead-of-time, due to long stability. We aimed to study the effect of an informatic-led workflow redesign intervention, facilitating workflow changes in the Oncology Pharmacy, on patient waiting time. This intervention included changes on EHR processes and the chemotherapy CPOE. Their main effect was allowing ahead-of-time preparation of selected chemotherapy regimes. We conducted a cross sectional study, comparing waiting times pre and post intervention periods. A total of 4600 programmed chemotherapy episodes were included. We found a 26.5 % decrease in the mean wait time in the post intervention period (p > 0.02). We were able to show a decrease in waiting time and a measurable impact of the intervention. This evaluation produced valuable and actionable data for Oncology units and adds a valuable, Latin American experience to the literature.
ISSN:1879-8365
DOI:10.3233/SHTI230944