BRINGING BRACHY BACK: ESTABLISHING AN ON-SITE BRACHYTHERAPY SUITE WITHIN A RADIATION ONCOLOGY DEPARTMENT.
Significance & Background: HDR (High-Dose Radiation) is a vital treatment option for patients with prostate, endometrial, or cervical cancer. It delivers hypofractionated radiation, reducing treatment dura-tion and improving overall patient outcomes. Typically performed in the operating room under a...
| Publicado en: | Oncology Nursing Forum Vol. 53; no. 2; pp. 310 - 312 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Oncology Nursing Society
Mar2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=194211645&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 194211645 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 0190535X 4F0 jtl: Oncology Nursing Forum issn: 0190535X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2026 vid: 53 iid: 2 pid: 12496 pub: Oncology Nursing Society place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania artinfo: ui: 194211645 10.1188/26.ONF.e26535271 194211645 ppf: 310 ppct: 2 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P tig: atl: BRINGING BRACHY BACK: ESTABLISHING AN ON-SITE BRACHYTHERAPY SUITE WITHIN A RADIATION ONCOLOGY DEPARTMENT. aug: au: Levit, Grace Stearns Christie, Helaina affil: MSN, RN, OCN, Intermountain Health: Saint Joseph's Hospital, Cancer Center of Colorado, Denver, CO sug: ab: Significance & Background: HDR (High-Dose Radiation) is a vital treatment option for patients with prostate, endometrial, or cervical cancer. It delivers hypofractionated radiation, reducing treatment dura-tion and improving overall patient outcomes. Typically performed in the operating room under anesthesia, this protocol can extend both the overall treatment time and the patient's recovery period. Additionally, the patient may experience inconsistent nursing care due to the involvement of multiple caregivers during HDR. However, an onsite brachytherapy suite within a radiation department can significantly streamline the procedure and enable more patients to benefit. Recognizing this potential, a radiation oncology team, including nurses, planned for nearly two years to establish the first HDR suite in the state, which opened in September 2023. Purpose: The goal of this project was to set up an onsite High Dose Radiation (HDR) brachytherapy suite within a bustling inner-city radiation clinic. This initiative aimed to streamline patient care, enhance safety, and ensure consistent nursing care for HDR patients. Interventions: An interdisciplinary team was assembled to oversee all aspects of the HDR suite, including construction, the identification and creation of patient and procedure workflows, the development of new policies, nurse education, and the creation of an electronic medical record (EMR) for documenting HDR procedures. Nurses played a crucial role on this team, contributing significantly to every component. Since the HDR suite opened over a year ago, we have been able to analyze data using our EMR to review the clinical benefits of the HDR suite and review patient satisfaction scores. Results: The average number of brachytherapy cases has increased from 1 to 2.7 per week since the HDR was established. Previously, when the procedure was performed in the OR, the average case time was 8.5 hours. This has now decreased to 6.2 hours. Patients have expressed satisfaction with the reduced procedure time and appreciate having the same nurse throughout the preprocedure, intraprocedure, and postprocedure recovery phases. Discussion: Setting up an on-site HDR suite in a radiation department offers several clinical benefits: it shortens procedure times compared to the OR protocol, improves continuity of nursing care, and allows more patients to benefit from HDR. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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