Creation of standard work for the management of outpatient oral antineoplastic therapy.

Abstract

369 Background: Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of oral antineoplastics for the treatment of various malignancies. The development of these agents has been so rapid that the infrastructure needed for their appropriate supervision has trailed their availability. Previously at Virginia Mason, there was no standard work established for the management of patients starting these agents and consequently there were defects noted, including delays in the medications’ delivery to the patient, lack of appropriate teaching regarding potential medication toxicities and even delayed provider follow-up. The goal of this project was to create standard work around the treatment initiation and follow-up of all patients starting outpatient oral antineoplastic therapy. Methods: A multi-disciplinary team of providers, nurses, and pharmacists held a flow mapping session to identify defects and waste points in the process between the prescription being written until the first provider follow-up visit after medication delivery. The team focused on decreasing the amount of time between prescription initiation and first clinic follow up, as well as increasing the percentage of RN teaching sessions performed and documented. This involved the creation of a dedicated inbox in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) to which pharmacy and care manager nurses had exclusive access to facilitate rapid communication between team members. The work also resulted in the creation of an antineoplastics teaching template which was used to document teaching on potential treatment toxicities. Results: Standard work was created for the outpatient oral antineoplastic administration process and teaching documentation. Using the new tools, lead time was improved by 21.7% and teaching documentation was improved by 185% at the 30-day mark. These metrics were monitored over a 3 month period, and at the end of 90 days the lead time improvement was maintained at 21.2% and teaching documentation improvement at 110% (Table). Conclusions: The rapid development of oral antineoplastic medications has required Oncology practices to develop more robust workflow infrastructure to administer these medications properly and safely. We created standard work for the proper initiation and follow-up of oral antineoplastic therapy. In doing so we identified specific defects and instances of waste and were able to improve the workflow process to address these issues, resulting in measurable quality improvements and overall better patient care.[Table: see text]