Relationships With Patients Imperative to AE Management in Cancer Care
Erica S. Doubleday, MS, FNP-C, BSN, RN, illustrated the importance of consistent care to identify AEs like interstitial lung disease in patients with cancer.
Monitoring patients’ symptoms across appointments is essential to preventing interstitial lung disease, according to Erica S. Doubleday, MS, FNP-C, BSN, RN.
It is essential that nurses and advanced practice providers (APPs) maintain a consistent relationship with patients in order to note changes in trends over time that may indicate serious adverse events. Doubleday emphasized that rapport with patients and their support team can also provide an additional resource for providers to more closely monitor symptom progression.
Doubleday is the director of APPs Oncology Service Line Hematology and Medical Oncology at Ochsner Health System.
Transcript
Consistency with the provider is important from an APP or a physician standpoint, and then consistency with your infusion nurse and your nurse that may be rooming you, because when you see these patients over and over again, you can notice that they are more winded when they’re walking into the room.
Taking their pulse [oximetry] is extremely important. That’s something that we do at every single visit, because they may not want to report it, but you can see a trend: they’re usually 98 or 100 and all of a sudden, they’re 95 and that’s something that you can trend out, typically in the electronical medical records.
And then, one thing that I love to do is ask the person who brings them or is with them, if somebody comes with them, you shoot them eyes if you think something’s off. And a lot of times, they will be behind you, saying, “Oh yes, they are way short of breath,” and they’re noticing changes.
So pull in all your resources that you really can to try and help with that. Because a lot of them aren’t going to say they’re short of breath, or they’ll be like, “Yes, I’m short of breath when I walk from the car.” And you’re like, “OK, but when you sit, how long does it take to recover? Is it something that's taking longer?” And those are tips that you can really try and suss out for the patient what exactly is going on.
