The arsenal for the treatment of metastatic melanoma is limited. A new approach to therapy using checkpoint blockade has improved overall survival in this patient population. Ipilimumab a CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody is a first in class drug that has pioneered this revolution. In this review, the authors provide an account of the different stages that led to the development of ipilimumab, its approval in the clinical setting for the treatment of advanced melanoma and ongoing investigations of combinatorial immune therapy.
Background: Patient blood management (PBM) programs aim to implement best practices and encourage blood stewardship. Judicious use of red blood cell transfusions improves patient safety, decreases hospital length of stay (LOS) and reduces cost. A 2010 World Health Organization statement asserted "…before surgery every reasonable measure should be taken to optimize the patient's own blood volume, minimize the patient's blood loss and to harness and optimize physiological tolerance of anemia…". A comprehensive PBM program includes a preoperative anemia clinic to facilitate these goals. At our institution, 21% of surgical patients are anemic prior to their elective surgery and these patients consume approximately 67% of our transfused operating room blood. Our aim was to reduce red blood cell transfusions in elective orthopedic surgical patients by 25% and decrease hospital LOS through the implementation of a preoperative anemia clinic. Methods: After enlisting the support of hospital leadership, a preoperative anemia clinic referral/consult order was added the electronic medical record. Appropriate patients for referral were undergoing elective orthopedic surgery and had anemia defined as a Hgb <11.0 g/dl. Additional non-anemic patients with extenuating circumstances such as religious objection to transfusion were also referred. Every effort was made to see patients at least 2 weeks prior to the date of scheduled surgery or within 48 hours if the referral was not placed that far in advance. Work-up of anemia was individualized based on a patient's laboratory abnormality and medical profile. Interventions were targeted at treating the underlying cause of anemia and included but were not limited to parenteral iron, erythropoietin receptor agonists, and vitamin B12 injections. The primary measures assessed were the average LOS from day of surgery to discharge and the number of red blood cell units transfused during that stay. Findings: Early data since implementing our preoperative anemia clinic has demonstrated a reduction in LOS from 5.5 days for anemic patients undergoing elective surgery without a referral versus 3.5 days for those with a referral. A relative decrease in LOS of 36%. Reductions in hospital LOS were observed across the spectrum of all elective surgical procedures. The overall red blood cell transfusion rate in patients without referral versus with referral was 1.5% and 1.2% respectively; and of those requiring a transfusion, the mean red blood cell units transfused in the perioperative period was 2.31 units versus 1.19 units, resulting in a relative reduction of 48%. Additionally, 2 patients were diagnosed with a gastric ulcer and 2 patients with multiple myeloma during work-up and referred appropriately for treatment. Discussion: Expansion of the PBM program at our institution to include a preoperative anemia clinic has led to significant reductions in both red blood cell transfusions and hospital LOS in elective orthopedic surgical patients. Early results indicate a near doubling of our goal of a 25% reduction in red blood cells transfused. This has positively impacted our patients and led to both direct and indirect financial savings at our institution. Given the initial success, we hope to expand our preoperative anemia clinic to include all surgical specialties and streamline workflow. To facilitate growth additional staffing will be required. We have created patient education videos about the benefits of correcting their anemia prior to an elective surgery and hope to further engage primary care practitioners to refer patients earlier in their surgical evaluation. We conclude that the creation of a preoperative anemia clinic at our institution is a valuable resource and has led to a decreased use of red blood cell transfusions, a decreased average hospital LOS, improved patient safety and considerable financial savings. Figure. Figure. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
372 Background: An adult oncology practice achieved 41% compliance with communication of ADRs involving infusion drugs to ordering provider during the year 2020. We aim at achieving communication of ADRs to ordering provider with a goal compliance rate of 75% over a period of 8 months. Methods: We assembled an interdisciplinary team comprising of medical oncologists, fellows, clinical nurse managers, infusion & clinic nurses, information technology (IT))providers and a clinical pharmacist. We reviewed ADRs occurring between April-December of 2021 in adult patients receiving outpatient infusion therapy at our institution. We created a current-state process map of ADRs in our infusion center. We identified issues that needed to be addressed including no clear standard for documenting or reporting an infusion reaction, no standard process was in place for proper notification to all parties involved nor was there a consistent location in the EHR regarding the description of events that took place. Acknowledgment by ordering provider to an ADR was used as a primary outcome measure. The RL6 (internal tracking system) patient safety events reported was used as a process measure. PDSA cycle 1 January 2021:We implemented a new flowsheet section in the EHR titled “Adverse Drug Reaction”. We created a smart phrase for clarification of documentation, when used will pull information from the flowsheet section into the note. Education was provided to nursing on this new standardized process. Clinicians were educated where to find this information as a standardized location within the EHR. The ordering provider was notified when an ADR occurred by having the infusion nurse document a clinical support note that is routed to the provider’s EHR in-basket. PDSA cycle 2 June 2021: Once nursing documented an ADR, an automated message was sent to all the care-team members via the ADR event folder within the EHR in-basket. The nursing staff then would add the ADR orders group to the treatment plan for clinician review. An alert was generated which prompted the clinician to acknowledge the ADR within the Beacon plan thereby alerting the nursing team if any changes were made. Results: In 2021 there were 73 ADR events that have occurred in Infusion Services. Our interventions were associated with an 80% improvement in communication of ADRs to ordering providers and 35% increase in reporting ADR within our internal tracking system. Conclusions: Developing a standardized ADR process enhanced communication of ADRs to the ordering providers as our intervention was associated with an 80% improvement in communication of ADRs over a 8-month period. Involving all major stakeholders, especially the staff working in information technology services, resulted in exponential results demonstrating the potential future solutions within the EHR.
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