PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lee, Yee Mei
TI  - To reduce the average length of stay of patients who are admitted for DA-EPOCH-R chemotherapy regimen
AID  - 10.1136/bmjquality.u208379.w3434
DP  - 2015 Jan 01
TA  - BMJ Quality Improvement Reports
PG  - u208379.w3434
VI  - 4
IP  - 1
4099  - http://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/4/1/u208379.w3434.short
4100  - http://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/4/1/u208379.w3434.full
SO  - BMJ Qual Improv Report2015 Jan 01; 4
AB  - Healthcare institutions are often faced with bed crunch situation. As a result, patients requiring inpatient hospital stay for cancer treatment are delayed and this could lead to compromised overall disease response. Apart from the early discharge of patients to step-down care and explore alternatives of treatment setting, one of the ways to reduce length of stay is to improve on the efficiency of work processes.A baseline study demonstrated that delays in prescribing chemotherapy orders has led to an increased inpatient stay of seven days for a five day treatment regimen. This has profound consequences in terms of costs, patient safety, and utilisation of healthcare resources. A quality improvement project was initiated to review and revise the workflow and processes involved for the entire episode of treatment. A post-implementation review of the interventions showed cost savings, a reduction of average length of stay from seven days to six days (with a total of 28 days saved over six months), and improved patient and staff experience.