Hand Hygiene Compliance at a Canadian provincial cancer centre - the complementary roles of nurse auditor-driven and patient auditor-driven audit processes and impact upon practice in ambulatory cancer care.

Background: We examined the patterns of hand hygiene compliance (HHC) among health care providers (HCP) as observed by trained nurse and patient auditors over time in an ambulatory care Canadian provincial cancer agency.

Methods: Nurse and volunteer patient auditors completed separate standardized forms documenting hand-cleansing opportunities during clinic visits. HHC rates were compared over time by HCP group and by specialty teams.

Developing recommendations for the safe handling of oral anti-cancer drugs in community pharmacies: A pan-Canadian consensus approach.

Purpose: To create a set of consensus-based and evidence-informed recommendations to provide guidance around the safe dispensing and handling of oral anti-cancer drugs in low-volume settings unique to the community pharmacy setting.

Methods: A review of published and grey literature (published in non-commercial domains such as national organizations and associations) documents and nine key informant interviews were conducted and a modified Delphi approach was taken to achieve consensus. The final list of 47 candidate recommendations was reviewed by a task force and validated by multi-disciplinary stakeholders.

Intravenous Chemotherapy Compounding Errors in a Follow-Up Pan-Canadian Observational Study.

Purpose: Intravenous (IV) compounding safety has garnered recent attention as a result of high-profile incidents, awareness efforts from the safety community, and increasingly stringent practice standards. New research with more-sensitive error detection techniques continues to reinforce that error rates with manual IV compounding are unacceptably high. In 2014, our team published an observational study that described three types of previously unrecognized and potentially catastrophic latent chemotherapy preparation errors in Canadian oncology pharmacies that would otherwise be undetectable.

The effects of interruptions on oncologists' patient assessment and medication ordering practices.

Interruptions are causal factors in medication errors. Although researchers have assessed the nature and frequency of interruptions during medication administration, there has been little focus on understanding their effects during medication ordering. The goal of this research was to examine the nature, frequency, and impact of interruptions on oncologists' ordering practices.