Episode 261: CAR T-Cell Therapy for Hematologic Malignancies Requires Education and Navigation

“Just like with anything we do in oncology, a lot of education is required. Nurses and coordinators are critical to start the education and provide effective resources that are reinforced throughout the treatment,” ONS member Beth Faiman, PhD, MSN, APN-BC, AOCN®, BMTCN®, FAAN, FAPO, advanced practice provider at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, BMTCN®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about how to address knowledge gaps and barriers to practice regarding patients who are preparing for or who have received CAR T-cell therapy for hematologic malignancies. Faiman was one of the content experts for two ONS focus groups on the topic in March 2023.

This podcast episode is produced by ONS and supported by funding from Janssen Oncology/Legend Biotech. ONS is solely responsible for the criteria, objectives, content, quality, and scientific integrity of its programs and publications.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0

Episode Notes

To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.

To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org.

Highlights From Today’s Episode

“Just like with anything we do in oncology, there is a lot of education that is required. The same navigators that take care of our patients through the transplant and cellular therapy process, we have similar cellular coordinators that were part of the focus group. These navigators were critical to start the education and provide effective resources that were reinforced throughout the treatment.” Timestamp (TS) 09:00

“The nurses and coordinators play a huge role during the transition of care. Not only do they help with coordinating appointments, but also the scheduling of tests and coordinating with the referring team. I heard a lot in the focus groups about the nurses communicating from inpatient to outpatient, and also coordinating from center to center.” TS 10:22

“Patients can get really nervous when they’re feeling sick. I explain it to them like, “You know how you get a flu shot, and you might get a little reaction as we’re training your immune system to provide immunity? Well, it’s like that, but way worse.’ So, you can get really sick feeling and achy from this, and so that psychosocial support is super important.” TS 18:16

“It takes a lot of burden on the patient, caregiver, and the nurse to really be astute to those symptoms and intervene. We do provide wallet cards to patients. We educate the emergency department staff. We also heard about the infection monitoring and caregiver support is absolutely critical. Fortunately, the symptom management has become quite standardized, which really affords the nurses more autonomy to intervene more efficiently.” TS 20:46

“The nurses found for education a teach-back tool to be quite useful. One of the nurses mentioned asking the patient questions such as, ‘What will you do when you have a fever? Tell me what you do,’ and “What do you understand from what the doctor just told you?’ And so that was just kind of a way that they could go back and forth with the educational process and really understand what the patients understood.” TS 25:46

Listen on:

Listen on Amazon Music, Listen on Apple Podcasts, Listen on Google Podcasts, Listen on Spotify

ONS Podcasts

On-the-go discussions covering a wide array of clinical and leadership topics that you can earn NCPD for.

View All Podcasts