Successful Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Chemotherapy Efficiency Initiative at a Community Hospital.

Purpose: Long wait times at chemotherapy infusion centers adversely affect patients' perception of quality of care and result in patient dissatisfaction. We conducted a quality improvement initiative at a busy community hospital to improve infusion center efficiency and reduce patient wait time, while maintaining patient safety and avoiding chemotherapy waste.

Methods: We used a coordinated and collaborative effort between providers, infusion center nurses, and pharmacists to ensure completion of orders, review of laboratory data, and prepreparation of chemotherapy 1 day ahead of each patient's scheduled infusion center appointment.

The adolescent research participant: strategies for productive and ethical interviewing.

Nurse researchers who seek to study the experiences of adolescents have limited resources to assist them with the process. Although some elements of interviewing are standard practice, special approaches are needed for the adolescent participating in research. Interviews are especially challenging.

Adolescents' transition to self-management of a chronic genetic disorder.

Self-management of chronic illness requires acquisition of self-care skills such as seeking knowledge, adhering to recommendations, practicing healthy behaviors, and life-long self-surveillance. This article describes the core problem and psychosocial processes by which parents transfer, and children take on, the responsibility for managing a chronic genetic condition. Individuals with Marfan syndrome (MFS), their parents, and health care providers were the sources of empirical data.