Reducing infusion wait time: Redesigning medication order verification workflow at a comprehensive cancer center.

129Background: Many factors contribute to long wait times for cancer patients on the day of their infusion. At Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), a contributing factor is patient flow between exam and infusion. Order verification affects patient flow and begins when the following two criteria are met: provider signed an order and the patient’s scheduled infusion appointment arrives. Patients often check-in to infusion before their scheduled infusion appointment. Order verification has three sequential steps: nurse verification, pharmacist 1 verify (V1), and pharmacist 2 verify (V2). Methods: A team of pharmacists, nurses, providers, and process improvement leads designed a pilot in which V1 moved before nurse verification, concurrent with patient check-in to infusion. Further, V1 began as soon as an order was signed; the pharmacist did not wait for a patient’s scheduled infusion appointment. Nurse verification and V2 occurred in sequence after V1. Timestamp data were extracted from Epic and analyzed via...