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Introduction Vascular access devices (VADs), both peripheral intravenous cannulas (PIVCs) and central venous access devices (CVADs) are fundamental in the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of patients with cancer. Standardised, evidence-based management is essential to minimise complications and premature removal. Vessel health and preservation, a relatively new topic in the literature, is about appropriate device selection for the individual patient and their prescribed therapy, and identification and appropriate management of difficult intravenous access. Objectives/Aims To summarise the current literature and detail graded, evidenced-based recommendations to guide clinical management of CVADs with the aim of preserving vein health for current and future use. Methods The CNSA VAD Specialist Practice Network used a systematic review methodology to establish clinically relevant PICO questions, perform an extensive database search, extract a priori data into Covidence and analyse data from the eligible studies. Findings from the data analysis were summarised into clinically-focused recommendations for practice, graded using the Infusion Nurses Society grading scale. Results/Outcomes A final 378 records were included from the 7936 records screened and 692 eligible records. Most studies were from Europe (n=132), followed by the USA (n=116), Australia (n=24) and China (n=20). The number of studies in this an emerging subject is steadily increasing with notable increases around the times of two key publications by Moureau and colleagues in 2012 and Hallam and colleagues in 2016. Recommendations detailing these three subjects were established and published on the CNSA website. Conclusion This systematic review provides a summary of current evidence and valuable evidence-based, graded recommendations to inform clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction The closer integration of supportive care in cancer positively impacts patient outcomes. To deliver quality supportive care, screening patients for their supportive care needs and providing this information to the Supportive Care Multidisciplinary Team is necessary but time consuming. A new process was piloted to provide cancer nurses with a more efficient method. Aims To improve how patient supportive care screening information is collected and then shared with the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) using existing systems and technology to save clinician time. Description The Modified Adelaide Supportive Care screening tool has been used successfully since 2018 to screen for supportive care needs in the Day Oncology Unit at Grampians Health Horsham. With our IT Department we explored whether this screening tool could be digitised as an E-Form in the Electronic Medical Record. Data could be entered directly via tablet by nurses during the screening consultation. This would then allow a patient's screening information to be available to be uploaded via dynamic data into the Supportive Care Multidisciplinary Meeting report. The nurse can run this report for each fortnightly meeting and share it with the MDT Team for the relevant patients to be discussed. Outcomes Digitising the screening tool allows nurses to input screening information directly. Digitalising the Supportive Care Multidisciplinary Meeting report to accept this screening data dynamically allows a report to be run quickly and efficiently which can be shared with the Cancer Supportive Care MDT covering the patients who will be discussed at the next meeting. Previously these processes were conducted manually for each patient and took significant clinician time. Conclusion Digitising and digitalising cancer supportive care processes has proven an effective strategy to save cancer nurse time in the test environment. Implementation has now commenced and will be extended throughout the Grampians Region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This article discusses the work done by Carmel O'Kane as team leader for a community children's home care team that led to her nomination for the title of RCN [...]