Find out more about ONS's presence on Capitol Hill as we advocate for oncology nurses throughout the country.
Patient care can be improved in a variety of areas, particularly with regard to symptom management. Marie Flannery, RN, PhD, Debra Kelly, PhD, RN, OCN®, Amy Moore, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, Karen Pekle, RN, ANPC, MS, AOCN®, and Chao Hsing Yeh, PhD, each presented studies they conducted that examined different aspects of symptom burden and management in oncology care during a session at the 41st Annual Congress in San Antonio, TX.
To help improve nurse-focused patient outcomes through evidence-based resources, ONS created its popular Putting Evidence Into Practice (PEP) resources. The print and web-based resources integrate the best evidence from well-designed studies with a clinician’s expertise, including patient assessment and practice data and patients’ preferences and values. The first volume of PEP was released in 2006 and has had several revisions ever since.
The relationship between cancer and the immune system is complicated but is the key to understanding the growing field of immunology and personalized medicine. Many cancers have already been demonstrated to respond to immunotherapy, including non-small cell lung, melanoma, renal, head and neck, Merkel cell, prostate, bladder, colon, Hodgkin lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Let's take the time to celebrate National Nursing Week, which falls from May 6–12, 2016. Not by eating ice cream or having dinners—although we can do that too—but by enhancing and elevating our own nursing practice.
Approximately 20%–40% of patients with cancer show significant stress; however, less than 10% identify that they are distressed. Distress impacts quality of life, employment functioning, medical adherence, medical costs, health risk behaviors, and health protection behaviors. Treating distress properly in this patient population can lead to better treatment adherence, better communication, fewer calls and visits, avoidance of feelings, and better trust between patients and all healthcare providers.
Although 5%–10% of patients with cancer have a hereditary, germline mutation, or familial link in the development of the disease that can predict the risk for other types of cancers, coordinated care, surveillance, and screening is often not a part of this high-risk population’s treatment plan. The Cancer Risk Management Program model is a patient-centered and preventative model that includes care given by four genetic counselors and an advanced practice RN-clinical nurse specialist (APRN-CNS). Through coordinated care, the program adheres to current nationally recommended surveillance recommendations for all organ systems at risk and addresses the needs of the whole patient.
Nurses at the Wilmot Cancer Institute at the University of Rochester Medical Center noticed an increase in patient volume at the outpatient oncology infusion center. With limited space and difficult scheduling around the original hours of operation (7 am–7 pm), nurse leaders at the center decided to expand normal hours to include Saturday and Sunday infusion appointments, which required a change in RN staffing at the center.
A person with adequate health literacy has the ability to access, understand, and act on health-related information. Safety and quality can suffer when a person is limited in any one of these components.
When I first became a nurse, 30 years ago, there was no term for what is now known as compassion fatigue in nursing. The sustained stress of caring for the extremely ill, meeting overwhelming patient and family needs, and managing workplace productivity, staffing, and satisfaction concerns, was simply what came with the job. Nursing school did not prepare us for the relentless stress of catastrophic life events and sustained physical extremes, but it did emphasize that ours is a profession of empathy and caring. Through it all, a nurse is empathetic, supportive, and giving, with a well-defined professional relationship established, which, in theory, protects all parties.
