Chemotherapy scheduling template development using an optimization approach.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a chemotherapy scheduling template that accounts for nurse resource availability and patient treatment needs to alleviate the mid-day patient load and provide quality services for patients.

Design/methodology/approach: Owing to treatment complexity in chemotherapy administration, nurses are required at the beginning, end and during treatment. When nurses are not available to continue treatment, the service is compromised, and the resource constraint is violated, which leads to inevitable delay that risks service quality.

Chemotherapy Acute Infusion Reactions: A Qualitative Report of the Perspectives of Patients With Cancer.

Objective: A growing number of cancer antineoplastic agents can cause life-threatening acute infusion reactions. Because previous studies have not studied these reactions from the perspective of patients, this study was undertaken with that objective in mind.

Methods: Patients who had an acute infusion reaction were interviewed based on the Leventhal model.

Alternative Outpatient Chemotherapy Scheduling Method to Improve Patient Service Quality and Nurse Satisfaction.

Introduction: Optimal scheduling and calendar management in an outpatient chemotherapy unit is a complex process that is driven by a need to focus on safety while accommodating a high degree of variability. Primary constraints are infusion times, staffing resources, chair availability, and unit hours.

Methods: We undertook a process to analyze our existing management models across multiple practice settings in our health care system, then developed a model to optimize safety and efficiency.

Hand Massage for Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy as Outpatients: A Pilot Study.

Context: There are no studies on the effect of volunteer-provided hand massage in a busy chemotherapy outpatient practice.

Objective: To assess the feasibility of introducing hand massage therapy into an outpatient chemotherapy unit and to evaluate the effect of the therapy on various symptoms experienced by cancer patients.

Design: A pilot, quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest study.

Capecitabine and temozolomide: design, implementation, and preliminary outcomes from a pilot project to ensure safe prescribing of oral chemotherapy.

Without adequate safety measures, oral chemotherapy can lead to undetected dosing errors. The Mayo Clinic launched a project to ensure that all capecitabine and temozolomide prescriptions receive an independent double check.

Physical activity in patients with advanced-stage cancer actively receiving chemotherapy.

Exercise has mental and physical health benefits for patients with advanced stage cancer who actively receive chemotherapy, yet little is known about patients'levels of interest in becoming more active or their confidence in increasing their activity level. A convenience sample of 128 patients with advanced-stage cancer who were receiving chemotherapy completed self-report measures assessing physical activity level, mood, and quality-of-life variables. Qualitative data on patient-perceived benefits of, and barriers to, physical activity also were collected, coded by independent raters, and organized by predominant themes.