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This retrospective descriptive study compared symptoms and symptom management in patients who completed autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation without hospital admission with those of patients who required unplanned hospital admission during the transplantation period. The sample consisted of 87 patients with multiple myeloma treated as outpatients during a 16-month period. Medical records and electronic database records review for each patient provided data on patient characteristics, medical factors, and symptoms/symptom management. Neither age, gender, religion, payer source, treatment on or off protocol, nor positive blood culture made a difference in hospital admission. The percentage of outpatient visits that included documented teaching on self-care made a significant difference (P = .008). Longitudinal analyses of patients' documented symptoms before admission compared with nonadmitted patients captured changes over time in symptoms/symptoms management. Overall, the patients' symptoms were managed well. Significant differences were fatigue, measured as the percentage of usual energy (P = .017), and the amount of oral hydration in a 24-hour period (P < .001). Results call attention to the role that fatigue and the amount of oral hydration may have in unplanned hospital admissions and to the importance of teaching on self-care.

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Objectives The INCAPS COVID Oceania study aimed to assess the impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on cardiac procedure volume provided in the Oceania region. Methods A retrospective survey was performed comparing procedure volumes within March 2019 (pre-COVID-19) with April 2020 (during first wave of COVID-19 pandemic). Sixty-three (63) health care facilities within Oceania that perform cardiac diagnostic procedures were surveyed, including a mixture of metropolitan and regional, hospital and outpatient, public and private sites, and 846 facilities outside of Oceania. The percentage change in procedure volume was measured between March 2019 and April 2020, compared by test type and by facility. Results In Oceania, the total cardiac diagnostic procedure volume was reduced by 52.2% from March 2019 to April 2020, compared to a reduction of 75.9% seen in the rest of the world (p<0.001). Within Oceania sites, this reduction varied significantly between procedure types, but not between types of health care facility. All procedure types (other than stress cardiac magnetic resonance [CMR] and positron emission tomography [PET]) saw significant reductions in volume over this time period (p<0.001). In Oceania, transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) decreased by 51.6%, transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) by 74.0%, and stress tests by 65% overall, which was more pronounced for stress electrocardiograph (ECG) (81.8%) and stress echocardiography (76.7%) compared to stress single-photon emission computerised tomography (SPECT) (44.3%). Invasive coronary angiography decreased by 36.7% in Oceania. Conclusion A significant reduction in cardiac diagnostic procedure volume was seen across all facility types in Oceania and was likely a function of recommendations from cardiac societies and directives from government to minimise spread of COVID-19 amongst patients and staff. Longer term evaluation is important to assess for negative patient outcomes which may relate to deferral of usual models of care within cardiology.

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