Evaluating the Feasibility of a Nurse-Driven Telephone Triage Intervention for Patients With Cancer in the Ambulatory Setting.

Objectives: To explore the feasibility of a nurse-driven telephone triage intervention to improve the symptom experience of patients with cancer receiving treatment in the ambulatory setting.

Sample & Setting: 90 patients in three ambulatory centers (breast, head and neck, and sarcoma) receiving active treatment at a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center.

Methods & Variables: Patients received 4-18 triage calls from a nurse during a period of as many as six months dependent on their diagnosis and treatment.

The Role of Oncology Nurses as Ethicists: Training, Opportunities, and Implications for Practice.

Ethical challenges are inherent in oncology clinical practice. Ranging from transitions in care to code status and treatment decisions, these ethical challenges can have an acute effect on nurses, with well-established connections to moral distress and other psycho-emotional sequelae. The availability of a nurse ethicist can provide invaluable resources to support nurses in awareness of ethical challenges and support for ethical decision making in practice.

Tools to expedite the development of treatment plans.

Quality improvement strategies can be used to modify existing health care processes to reduce patient wait times. We undertook a quality improvement project to reduce the time between new patients' initial visits and the finalization of their treatment plans. Initiation of treatment of new patients at the MD Anderson Sarcoma Medical Oncology Clinic can take up to 2 weeks from their initial consultation.