Annual Report 2022
Outpatient Treatment Center
Kiyotaka Yoh, Yosuke Minami, Toru Mukohara, Susumu Okano, Mitsuhito Sasaki, Daisuke Kotani, Miki Kondo, Kayoko Nakata, Naomi Ito, Kenji Kawasumi, Yoshihiro Iwamoto, Chihiro Nakata, Yasuki Yamagishi, Miyuki Hara, 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 various 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 administration 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, 33 nurses (including 1 nurse manager and 2 deputy nurses), 5 pharmacists, 1 resident of pharmacist, 1 assistants of nurses, and 2 reception staff. The Outpatient Treatment Center is equipped with 73 beds, including 5 beds for infusions or blood transfusions. In 2022, a total of 49,218 patients received anticancer treatment, with the average number of patients per day being 203 (Figure 1). There were 13,225 in Gastrointestinal Oncology, 8,878 in Medical Oncology, 6,866 in Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Oncology, 3,824 in Thoracic Oncology, 1,973 in Head and Neck Oncology, 1,245 in Hematology, and 208 in other departments (Figure 2). Our monthly steering committee meeting is held on every third Monday from 16:30 to 17:00 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 provide 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 offer guidance on addressing adverse events and respond to inquiries from patients and their families via telephone. If the matters are serious, they transfer them to medical oncologists. This service was started in 2008 and has gradually increased. In 2022, a total of 3,408 calls were received. The service contributes to preventing serious adverse events and relieving patients’ anxiety.
Research Activities
We gave presentations titled "Retrospective study on immune-related adverse events in cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors" at the 37th Japan Cancer Nursing Society, and titled "A telephone consultation service (hotline) for cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors" at the 12th Japanese Society of Pharmaceutical Oncology.
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. Thus, we are attempting to actively accept additional patients who need to be treated with chemotherapy at outpatient clinics. An addition of 5 new beds is planned.