Causes and Consequences of Chemotherapy Delays in Ambulatory Oncology Practices: A Multisite Qualitative Study.
PURPOSE
In oncology, chemotherapy treatment delays potentially jeopardize patient safety and impede progress toward disease remission. The purpose of this study was to examine the causes and consequences of chemotherapy treatment delays and possible solutions to improve quality of care.


PARTICIPANTS &AMP; SETTING
The current authors selected a purposive sample of eight ambulatory oncology practices for ethnographic site visits, which lasted five days each.


METHODOLOGIC APPROACH
The authors conducted 290 observation hours, including clinician shadowing, and 46 semistructured interviews with clinicians (oncology nurses, physicians, and advanced practice providers). Deductive and inductive thematic analysis was performed on all data.


FINDINGS
The authors identified four primary themes from the analysis that affect delays.


IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Future investigations should examine nurses' communication practices in the context of timely chemotherapy administration because communication and documentation technologies within healthcare settings continuously evolve.
['Lafferty|Megan|M|', 'Fauer|Alex|A|0000-0001-7811-1593', 'Wright|Nathan|N|', 'Manojlovich|Milisa|M|', 'Friese|Christopher R|CR|0000-0002-2281-2056']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities D004358:Drug Therapy D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D009369:Neoplasms D009859:Oncology Nursing D036301:Qualitative Research D011787:Quality of Health Care D061665:Time-to-Treatment D014481:United States
chemotherapy ambulatory oncology clinician communication quality of health care