SCI Cancer Clinical Trials Office Blog

News & Updates from the SCI-CCTO

Guideline to Provide Remote Nursing In-services

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Since COVID-19, we have been working in a new environment where remote activities became the norm. Nursing in-services at all locations – ambulatory and inpatient setting – are now successfully performed virtually. A new guideline document lists the steps of this process to create a user-friendly resource for all clinical coordinators.

Find the Remote Nursing In-Service Guideline (add hyperlink) at Coordinator Corner in the Guidelines for Practice tab under the subtitle Treatment Areas.

Clinical Trials Feasibility Form for Nursing Services

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Feasibility review of clinical trial protocols is a critical step to study intake submission. To add resources to improve this process,  the Cancer Clinical Trials Office (CCTO)/Infusion Treatment Area (ITA) taskforce developed a brief nursing feasibility form to support a timely (early) checking of the best/appropriate location (Service Center) to deliver a particular research treatment based on its requirements.

The form, also vested by the Clinical Translational Research Unit (CTRU) and Oncology Inpatient Units at Stanford Hospital, provides a tool of communication between clinical research coordinators (CRCs) and Service Centers (SCs) that confirms their ability to provide nursing service for a new project. This form helps the ongoing efforts to standardize the CCTO existing feasibility process while ensuring that nursing services, may they be planned for the ambulatory or inpatient setting or both, are reviewed prior the creation of the budget and the IRB submission to shorten the study start-up process timeline.

You will find the new tool in Coordinator Corner in the CRFs/Forms tab under the subheading “RedCap Forms”

How to use the form:

1.   Follow the instructions to reach out to the appropriate Service Center Liaison(s) with the completed form.

2.   Obtain electronic signature to attest early feasibility approval to conduct the trial in their SCs

3.   The signed form is then to be uploaded onto the REDCap feasibility form as an attachment to provide evidence of study viability in a particular SC for clinical manger review/approval

CCTO Website Updates

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Stanford Medicine will be removing SUnet protection from its webpages. As a result, the CCTO website will no longer be SUnet protected, and its webpages will be accessible to all. Certain pages (our staff contact listings) have therefore moved to MedWiki to maintain staff privacy.

Please note: All CCTO documents (Word docs, Excel files, PDFs, Powerpoints) have been reviewed, and will remain SUnet protected on our website if deemed to be confidential. You will need to be logged into your SUnet to download these protected files.

Additionally, Coordinator Corner has been slightly reorganized. Case Report Form (CRF) documents are now part of the “Forms” tab: https://med.stanford.edu/ccto/staff-resources/coordinator-corner.html#crfs_forms

Study Kit Identification Tag

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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

Revamped Paper Orders for the Infusion Treatment Area (ITA)

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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.