Medical Oncology Network

One of the UK's leading teaching hospitals has implemented a medical oncology information system to improve interdepartmental communication and reduce the risk of human error when prescribing chemotherapy agents for cancer patients.

St. Bartholomew's Hospital (London, UK) has integrated the VARiS MedOncology system, developed by Varian Medical Systems (Palo Alto, CA, USA), with its existing networks to create a more fully integrated oncology department. Using this new system, the medical staff expects to enhance patient safety and the quality of care.

Dr. Chris Gallagher, clinical director at St. Barts, stated, "The modern treatment of cancer is organized through multidisciplinary teams and not separate departments so that integration of information and the improvement in communication between the departments is of great importance in ensuring safe and optimally effective treatments.”

The system provides cancer treatment facilities with software that combines and manages information including appointments, treatment regimens, and diagnostic suggestions for both radiation therapy and chemotherapy within a single electronic medical record for each patient. A major element is "decision support,” which helps increasingly busy medical oncology departments to decrease the risk of human error when prescribing and delivering powerful chemotherapy drugs.

Dr. Gallagher reported that VARiS MedOncology has an important role to play in helping staff to reduce the risk of human error in chemotherapy prescribing, specifically ‘click' errors when inputting data. "It has been shown in various studies to significantly reduce the incidence of human error in the prescribing process,” he said.

The system is designed to improve patient care by tracking dose levels and drug/allergy interactions. It saves clinical staff time by automating preparation of forms, reports, progress notes, and where applicable, charge capture.

"This system provides cancer treatment facilities with software that combines and manages information including appointments, treatment regimens, and diagnostic suggestions for both radiation therapy and chemotherapy within a single electronic medical record for each patient,” remarked Walter Frei, Varian's vice president, European sales and marketing operations.



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