Annual Report 2021
Outpatient Treatment Center
Masafumi Ikeda, Koichi Goto, Takayuki Yoshino, Mukohara Toru, Susumu Okano, Yosuke Minami, Miki Kondo, Kayoko Nakata, Naomi Ito, Kenji Kawasumi, Yoshihiro Iwamoto, Chihiro Nakata, Yasuki Yamagishi, Miyuki Hara, Yoko Takada, Hideyuki Yoshizumi
Introduction
The Outpatient Treatment Center is responsible for anticancer treatment, such as chemotherapy, molecular targeted agents, immune checkpoint inhibitors and hormonal therapy for patients with all types of cancer. Our basic policy is to provide high-quality anticancer treatment and to support the lifestyle of patients and their families. Our goals are to 1) provide appropriate and satisfactory management of chemotherapy and 2) share the mindsets of outpatients with our staff. We can provide high-quality and comfortable treatments with the collaboration of medical oncologists, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians, medical social workers, hospital clerks, and clinical research coordinators.
The Team and What We Do
Our team consists of 1 director, 5 medical oncologists, 1 nurse manager, 2 deputy nurses, 28 nurses, 2 chief pharmacists, 2 pharmacists, 1 resident of pharmacist, 2 assistants of nurses, and 2 reception staff. The Outpatient Treatment Center has a total of 73 beds including 5 beds for infusions or blood transfusions. In 2021, a total of 46472 patients received anticancer treatment, with the average number of patients per day being 192 (Figure 1). There were 12722 in Gastrointestinal Oncology, 10104 in Medical Oncology, 6254 in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Oncology, 3510 in Thoracic Oncology, 2031 in Head and Neck Oncology, 1418 in Hematology, and 1014 in other departments (Figure 2). The monthly steering committee meeting is held on the third Monday from 16:30 to 17:00 every month with the participation of medical oncologists, nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, clinical research coordinators, and hospital clerks. We discuss the monthly activities and problems of this center raised by each section, such as nursing, pharmacy, and clinical trials, and plan remedies for these problems. The short-time slot in the evening was expanded to discuss outpatient treatment for employment support for patients.
Before initiating new regimens and clinical trials at this center, staff meetings with medical oncologists, nurses, and pharmacists are held to safely and appropriately manage the treatments.
We have a telephone consultation service (hotline) for outpatients who have received anticancer treatments at this center. Pharmacists and nurses who are highly experienced in outpatient treatment respond with countermeasures for adverse events and answer any queries from patients or their families by telephone. If the matters are serious, they transfer them to medical oncologists. This service was started in 2008 and has gradually increased. In 2021, a total of 3322 calls were received. The service contributes to preventing serious adverse events and relieving patients’; anxiety.
Research activities
We gave a presentation titled “Conference in our outpatient treatment center” at the 36th Japan Cancer Nursing Society.
Education
We train nurses and pharmacists in special knowledge so they can enhance patients’ self-care skills and appropriately resolve some of the problems arising with patients and their families during anticancer treatment.
Future Prospects
We always manage the bed control efficiently at the Outpatient Treatment Center, and attempt to resolve the problem of waiting times for patients. We have re-evaluated the content of regimens that were only available on admission, such as introducing short hydration for regimens requiring a long time, and adjusted the regimens to enable them to be received at the Outpatient Treatment Center. During the coronavirus pandemic, we are planning to create an orientation video using the homepage and QR code so that patients can view it repeatedly at home with their families, because the families of patients are restricted in terms of coming to our hospital with the patients. Thus, we are attempting to actively accept additional patients who need to be treated with chemotherapy at outpatient clinics. Furthermore, a lot of new regimens and clinical trials are also being actively accepted.