The Development of a Software System for Patients with Breast Cancer Receiving Chemotherapy Treatment: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Until recently, anti-cancer clinics in order to plan and schedule chemotherapy treatments applied time-consuming methods, characterized by a high risk of error occurrence. Considering all the barriers that make chemotherapy treatment and demanding procedure, to evaluate if a chemotherapy management program could improve the administration of chemotherapy treatments. The authors developed "Carci", a software tool designed to support anti-cancer clinics. The particular software program aims to provide an improved administration system for injectable anticancer agents and eliminate medication errors that could yield fatal events. The recording of patients' data, the selection of the appropriate treatment protocol, the calculations of drug dosages, the correct preparation and administration of injectable solutions and the updating of secretariat, were conducted both manually and by using the computerized method. These two methods were compared and contrasted. The use of "Carci" resulted in a decrease in the time required to calculate patients' Body Surface Area (BSA) and in a decrease in the occurrence of errors concerning the dosage of medication administered. A total of 18 patients with breast cancer were assigned to this pilot study. Significant differences were observed in BSA values (p=0.0391) and dosage (p=0.0042) between the computerized method "Carci" and manually by the doctor. Although this has been a pilot study, further evaluation of this software program in a larger sample of patients is required. Preliminary data, however, suggests that "Carci" can minimize the risk for error occurrence making chemotherapy treatment faster, easier and more accurate.

Specifications of Computerized Provider Order Entry and Clinical Decision Support Systems for Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy: A Systematic Review

“…The most important specification of these systems that differentiates the chemotherapy CPOE from other domains is the attention paid to chemotherapy protocols and their implementation in the system to reduce the natural complexity of the chemotherapy prescription and to simplify the administration process, which was pointed out in almost all of the articles. Several papers [15,63] also included user interfaces for updating chemotherapy protocols in the system. As mentioned in the studies of CPOE in other areas, practicing medicine based on memory is unreliable and "to err is human".…”

“…The hospital workflow support system was proposed in 15 papers [34, 36, 37, 42, 44-47, 51, 54, 57, 58, 70, 74, 75]. Documentation and reporting specifications were discussed in 12 articles [35,40,42,46,57,58,[63][64][65][66][67][68]; specifications associated with drug safety were listed in 12 articles [34,40,42,45,54,56,60,63,64,66,70,74]; system communication and information security specifications were also debated in 8 [40,48,49,55,57,61,64,70] and 7 [39,44,45,55,61,63,68] papers, respectively.…”

“…In terms of decision-making, these systems were helpful to physicians in various ways with the present knowledge of protocols (from specifying protocol details to automatic complex calculations based on the existing rules in the protocol and treatment plan proposal). In 2 articles [15,63], the user interface was designed to define new protocols in the system, and it was possible DOI: 10.1159/000489503 to continuously enable users to log into new protocols in the system. Only 1 article [43] mentioned the lack of electronic chemotherapy protocols in the system as a factor in the lack of complete success of chemotherapy CPOE.…”