One aspect that ambulatory oncology nurses must consider in the greater staffing conversation is the time spent on educating patients and caregivers about oral chemotherapy safety in the home setting. Developing an educational framework to guide those conversations not only ensures that all critical information is covered but also that it’s delivered in a standard and efficient process.
As use of ambulatory care settings continues to grow, so too does the demand for expertly trained nurses to staff them. Unfortunately, nurse staffing levels have struggled to meet the burgeoning need in ambulatory clinics throughout the country. Traditionally, undergraduates receive limited ambulatory-specific education in nursing school, leaving them unprepared to enter those settings after graduation. However, the nursing shortage complicates staffing issues, and we must develop programs to direct new graduate nurses into ambulatory oncology careers.
A key responsibility of any board of directors is to set the strategic direction for the organization. Volunteer board leaders determine the what and why of initiatives that will move the organization forward. Staff leaders develop the how statements: goal descriptors, implementation tactics, and measurable outcomes.
As part of its focus to dismantle the 2010 healthcare law, the GOP repealed the Affordable Care Act individual mandate in 2017. Republican state attorneys general then challenged the law’s constitutionality in a series of lower court cases, and the most recent has been lingering in federal courts for more than a year. On March 2, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the issue, marking the third time the law will be heard at the highest court in the country.
In nursing school I was always taught to maintain professional boundaries with patients, including never sharing any personal information like my address or contact information. No matter how many times faculty members said it, we never role played scenarios with that situation. I was unprepared for the moment, six months into my nursing career, when a kind, gentle, nonthreatening woman asked me for my address so she could send me a Christmas card.
COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus (a large family of viruses that can cause cold-like illnesses) first identified in December 2019. It is a respiratory illness and can be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets during close contact. The first case of COVID-19 in the United States was reported on January 21, 2020.
Although U.S. smoking rates have hit an all-time low of 14%, 34 million American adults are still considered active smokers, according to the U.S. surgeon general’s January 2020 report on smoking cessation. It’s the first new report focused directly on smoking cessation from the surgeon general’s office in 30 years.
With evolving treatments and novel approaches to care, outpatient oncology practice has grown exponentially during the past two decades. As a vital stop on the cancer journey for many patients, ambulatory clinics have seen a boom in acuity, patient needs, and staffing demands. ONS has been actively researching the growing staffing dilemma in ambulatory oncology nursing to help institutions understand and address nurse-patient staffing and which best practices can accommodate the varied challenges.
Convenience. Flexibility. Normalcy. Ambulatory oncology clinics deliver on those three crucially important aspects of treatment to many patients with cancer, offering expert care without a hospital stay or traveling far from home.
On March 2, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved isatuximab-irfc (Sarclisa®) in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone for adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor.