Fostering Oral Chemotherapy Understanding and Safety (FOCUS) Project: Interventions for Improving Knowledge and Compliance With National Safety Standards.

Background: Oral chemotherapy drug development and use has increased, and evidence in the literature suggests variability in practices nationally. Thus, there is a need for continuous review of the process of oral chemotherapy administration that focuses on improving adherence to national standards.

Objectives: This quality improvement project evaluated provider and staff general knowledge on oral chemotherapy and national safety standards and the implementation and ease of use of an electronic medical record (EMR)-integrated chemotherapy documentation template geared toward improving compliance with national chemotherapy administration standards.

Associations between age and patient-reported outcomes, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations among lung cancer patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Objective: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for lung cancer (LC) treatment have a more favorable safety profile and improved patient reported outcomes (PROs) compared to chemotherapy, suggesting that ICIs are advantageous for older populations. The impact of ICIs on PROs, clinical outcomes, and age in LC patients remains to be established. We examined associations between age and PROs, emergency department (ED) visits, and hospitalizations in LC patients receiving ICIs.

Factors Associated With Unmet Supportive Care Needs and Emergency Department Visits and Hospitalizations in Ambulatory Oncology.

Importance: Patients with cancer experience multiple supportive care needs (eg, coping and financial counseling) that, if not addressed, may result in poor clinical outcomes. Limited work has assessed the factors associated with unmet needs in large and diverse samples of ambulatory oncology patients.

Objective: To characterize the factors associated with unmet supportive care needs among ambulatory oncology patients and to assess whether such needs were associated with emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations.

Implementation and Feasibility of an Electronic Health Record-Integrated Patient-Reported Outcomes Symptom and Needs Monitoring Pilot in Ambulatory Oncology.

Purpose: Describe the feasibility and implementation of an electronic health record (EHR)-integrated symptom and needs screening and referral system in a diverse racial/ethnic patient population in ambulatory oncology.

Methods: Data were collected from an ambulatory oncology clinic at the University of Miami Health System from October 2019 to January 2021. Guided by a Patient Advisory Board and the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment model, was developed to assess physical and psychologic symptoms and needs of ambulatory oncology patients before appointments to triage them to supportive services when elevated symptoms (eg, depression), barriers to care (eg, transportation and childcare), and nutritional needs were identified.