Rapid Response Team Activations in Oncologic Ambulatory Sites: Characteristics, Interventions, and Outcomes.

Purpose: Patients with cancer are vulnerable to clinical deterioration. Rapid response teams (RRTs) identify and manage patients with acute changes in clinical status. Although RRTs have been well studied in the hospital setting, there are limited data on patients who require support in the ambulatory or outpatient oncologic settings.

Penicillin Allergy Testing: An Outpatient Nurse-Driven Program for Patients With Cancer.

Background: Penicillin allergy testing (PAT) can decrease the use of unnecessary antibiotics by clarifying who is truly allergic.

Objectives: This article describes the development and implementation of an oncology outpatient nurse-driven PAT program.

Methods: A nurse-driven program, initiated with allergy screening at the first encounter, was designed to identify patients with oncologic diagnoses eligible for PAT.

Reducing Unnecessary and Duplicate Ordering for Ovum and Parasite Examinations and Clostridium difficile PCR in Immunocompromised Patients by Using an Alert at the Time of Request in the Order Management System.

We implemented hospital information system (HIS) alerts to deter unnecessary test orders for ovum and parasite (O&P) exams and Clostridium difficile PCR. The HIS alerts decreased noncompliant O&P orders (orders after >72 h of hospitalization) from 49.8% to 30.

Hospitalists on an inpatient tertiary care oncology teaching service.

Purpose: Hospitalists provide quality care in various inpatient settings, but the ability of hospitalists to provide quality inpatient care for patients with complex cancer has not been studied. This study explores outcomes with a hospitalist-led versus medical oncologist-led house staff team on an inpatient medical GI oncology teaching service.

Methods: This observational retrospective cohort study examined 829 patient discharges from August 2012 to January 2013 on the GI oncology inpatient teaching service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, a tertiary cancer center in New York, New York.

30-day-or-sooner readmissions of gastrointestinal medical oncology patients following cancer center inpatient service discharge: characteristics and preventability.

Purpose: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently initiated readmission reduction programs for certain noncancer index admissions. Intrinsic to this policy is the assumption that such readmissions are reasonably preventable and are due to inadequate management. For cancer patients, readmission frequency, characteristics, and their preventability have not been extensively evaluated.

Severe hypo-alpha-lipoproteinemia during treatment with rosiglitazone.

Thiazolidinedione drugs are in widespread use for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. In addition to improving insulin sensitivity, they generally result in a modest elevation of plasma HDL cholesterol. We report three patients, all of whom had preexisting diabetic dyslipidemia, who showed a profound reduction in plasma HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein AI levels soon after the initiation of rosiglitazone therapy.

Relationship of homocysteine to markers of platelet and endothelial activation in "high risk" hypertensives: a substudy of the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial.

Objective: To examine the relationship between plasma homocysteine (HCY) and rheological, endothelial and platelet markers in "high risk" hypertensive patients.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Subjects And Methods: A total of 165 consecutive hypertensive patients (136 male; mean age 63 years (S.