New diagnosis patient education

[vanlo001]

Hi fellow nurses:

I'm doing an evidenced based change project on empowering the bedside nurse to provide patient education for the newly diagnosed oncology patient. What are your thoughts or experiences on the subject.

When do you introduce new diagnosis teaching (you know how they come in and there is several days of testing before confirming and staging the cancer diagnosis- then the start chemo)

Do you have a special person dedicated to discharge teaching or do all the bedside nurses do new diagnosis teaching. Is it done in increments or on the last few inpatient days?

We have cases where discharge teaching is bot done because after the diagnosis the families are grieving (this is pediatrics) then they are going through the chemo then all the sudden they are being discharged and none of the checklist is done) how does your floor deal with this issue.

Do you use visual aides like videos, checklists, binders, APOHN sheets? Thanks for your input. I'm in the middle of my literature search, and am really attempting to supplement that search with what is being done in hospitals across the country.

Thanks in advance. I've learned so much from everyones posts her at ALLNURSES.COM

[PalmoRN]

We have a wonderful clinical coordinator (nurse practioner) in our dept.

She also does education for patients and staff...

No one simply gets discharged without a lot of social work involvement

I'm sure there's a lot more but I'm pretty new to the dept.

Perhaps, I could check with her next week

[vanlo001]

Thanks palmo RN. I appreciate your feedback. I am looking for how anybody handles their new diagnosis teaching and I appreciate your response. Independent of this I'll be doing a whole evidenced based change product but it's interesting to see how other places go about doing teaching. It's such a heart stopping event to havecyour child or yourself be diagnosed with cancer.

[PalmoRN]

I'll check with our coordinator next week and see what she says