Cancer Clinical Trials Office Blog

Can you imagine how hard it would be to find travelling luggage without an identification tag? One can argue that it is the same with study kits. If kits owners and kits destination (where collected specimens should go) are not clearly identified, that precious “cargo” can be lost in transit.

To better identify study sample collection kits, the CCTO created a tag that that can be customized and printed to accompany research kits. The tag is a small rectangular informational router to be placed at the outside of biohazard bags where study collection tubes are nestled.

The identification tag is not a substitute to study form inserts that should continue to be placed in the outer pocket of the biohazard bags or study boxes.

Please find the new tag at the CCTO Webpage Coordinator Corner > Guidelines to Practice > Lab Kits

Treatment orders are communication tools. Licensed prescribers write orders to instruct other licensed professionals, such as nurses and medical assistants, how to deliver care to patients.

To better meet this criteria, the CCTO/ITA Task Force, a group that meets monthly to improve clinical operations workflows at Stanford Cancer Institute, updated treatment orders templates.

The main changes to the 2017 old order set are:

• Order Header and Footer sized to meet SHC Medical Records requirements for scanning
• Prescriber initials and dates are required for review of safety labs and pre-medications
• Separate orders for different treatment days
• Tubing instructions section added
• Generic reaction management for oral and intravenous drugs

The template and supporting documents (e.g.: examples and guider’s user) are now available at CCTO website Resources: Coordinator Corner > CRFs/Templates/Tools > Infusion Treatment Area (ITA) to be used, immediately, to all new patients.

To facilitate the adoption of the new order set, there is a three-month grace period to transition old orders to the new format.

NEW to CCTO Feasibility Form https://is.gd/feasibility_form is the option to send and receive an emailed pdf of a completed Form. 

Once study coordinators select “Submit” to a completed file to route for managers’ approval, they now have a new option that auto-populates in their screen asking for entering an email address for confirmation to receive an email notification with an attachment of the submission. 

That email can become the communication to managers that a form is ready for review and sign-off.    Please note this option is not available if “Save & Return Later” is selected.

Alternatively, instead of an email, CRCs can also download a pdf of the completed form for submission to managers.

Also new to the Database component of the Feasibility Form is an option for discarding a submission that is no longer valid.  For instance, entries started for studies that got dropped by CRG or Sponsor or yet files submitted early or in error can be removed with an email request (craveiro@stanford.edu AND mashland@stanford.edu) with the reason for the cancellation. This will prevent that forms are accounted as an outstanding incomplete entry for a particular group during monthly the data analysis.