CREATING CONSISTENCY: ALIGNING PATIENT EDUCATION ACROSS A COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER.

Significance & Background: At a large comprehensive NCI designated Cancer Center individual departments were responsible for creating, tracking and delivering educational documents. While assessing current state of education forms it was noted that there were system wide differences in language, ins...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Oncology Nursing Forum Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 235 - 237
Autor principal: Oehler, Joanna
Formato: Journal Article
Publicado: Oncology Nursing Society Mar2026
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Significance & Background: At a large comprehensive NCI designated Cancer Center individual departments were responsible for creating, tracking and delivering educational documents. While assessing current state of education forms it was noted that there were system wide differences in language, instructions, and criteria in different departments. The institution has had rebranding, and all the forms were updated with the new logo, but neither the clinical content nor the health literacy were consistently updated. It was clear that there was no oversite nor standardization in the development or revision of these documents. A comprehensive review and revision of all the educational forms and creation of a process to align all the departments for any future document creation and revision was initiated. Purpose: To design a standardized process with oversight for creating, reviewing and maintaining patient education documents with approved language, and appropriate health literacy for best oncology patient outcomes. Interventions: A committee was convened of clinical nurses, clinical educators, clinical specialty experts, health literacy and cross-disciplinary staff from the organization to assess, evaluate, and make recommendations on education forms. Forms were evaluated for need for replacement or retirement. Gaps in intent and language were noted and reconciled across all instructional documents. From this data a master list and template for standardization of new instruction elements was established and approved by health literacy and clinical specialty experts. The process of review and updating was integrated into a documented workflow with a three- year review mandate to align with on-going current clinical practice and policy review. Results: The new education forms increased patient compliance due to the clear concise language which did not differ regardless of which department delivered it. Additionally, 28 of the 69 forms reviewed were retired, which increased the relevance and efficiency of current education forms and was cost saving. Discussion: Departmental silos often prevent seamless collaboration and integration across departments. Despite this, our patients exist across these boundaries, and when departments operate inconsistently or contradict one another, it can lead to perceived unreliability and a loss of trust. By overcoming the insular task of fixing just one department's documents and instead take on the larger task, consistency, standardization, and oversight was achieved which leads to the greatest outcomes for our patients.