Journal of oncology practice
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The impact of financial burden among patients with cancer has not yet been measured in a way that accounts for inter-relationships between quality of life, perceived quality of care, disease status, and sociodemographic characteristics. ⋯ Financial burden is prevalent among cancer survivors and is related to patients' health-related quality of life. Future studies should consider interventions to improve patient education and engagement with regard to financial burden.
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Given the paucity of research on the experience of pediatric oncology fellows regarding patient death, the purpose of this study was to explore the specific challenges that pediatric oncology fellows face when patients die during their training. ⋯ Structural changes to the fellowship model can be made in order to enhance support with patient death, including informing fellows of all patient deaths and incorporating fellows into follow-up practices with bereaved families. Moreover, integrating fellows' debriefing (facilitated by grief counselors) after a patient death into fellow training, as well as greater involvement with palliative care physicians, can lessen feelings of isolation and help fellows learn effective strategies for dealing with patient deaths from experienced palliative care physicians.
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Multicenter Study
Perceptions of palliative care among hematologic malignancy specialists: a mixed-methods study.
Patients with hematologic malignancies are less likely to receive specialist palliative care services than patients with solid tumors. Reasons for this difference are poorly understood. ⋯ Most hematologic oncologists view palliative care as end-of-life care, whereas solid tumor oncologists more often view palliative care as a subspecialty for comanaging patients with complex cases. Efforts to integrate palliative care into hematologic malignancy practices will require solutions that address unique barriers to palliative care referral experienced by hematologic malignancy specialists.
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Observational Study
Hospitalists on an inpatient tertiary care oncology teaching service.
Hospitalists provide quality care in various inpatient settings, but the ability of hospitalists to provide quality inpatient care for patients with complex cancer has not been studied. This study explores outcomes with a hospitalist-led versus medical oncologist-led house staff team on an inpatient medical GI oncology teaching service. ⋯ A hospitalist-led inpatient service with house staff represents a novel approach for caring for hospitalized GI oncology patients with cancer.
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), under the Hospitals Readmissions Reductions Program, may withhold regular reimbursements for excessive 30-day readmissions for select diagnoses. Such penalties imply that some readmissions reflect poor clinical decision making or care during the initial hospitalization. We examined factors related to potentially preventable readmissions in CMS patients at a tertiary cancer hospital. ⋯ Most unplanned readmissions to a tertiary cancer hospital are related to progression of disease, new diagnoses, and procedure complications. Minimizing readmissions in complex cancer patients is challenging. Larger multi-institutional datasets are needed to determine a reasonable standard for expected readmission rates.