Managing Hazardous Drug Safety as Cancer Care Moves Beyond Hospital Walls

Managing Hazardous Drug Safety as Cancer Care Moves Beyond Hospital Walls

Einav Segev

The landscape of cancer treatment is rapidly transforming. What once required lengthy hospital stays now increasingly happens in ambulatory infusion centers, outpatient clinics, and even patients’ homes. While this shift brings tremendous benefits—greater convenience, reduced costs, and improved quality of life for patients—it also creates new challenges for hazardous drug handling that healthcare systems are still learning to navigate.

As oncology care decentralizes, so does the risk of exposure to hazardous drugs. Healthcare leaders today face the challenge of maintaining rigorous safety standards across an expanding network of care locations.

The Decentralization Challenge: From Controlled to Distributed
Hospital inpatient units have long been the gold standard for chemotherapy safety, with controlled environments, specialized equipment, and comprehensive safety protocols.

But as healthcare economics drive treatment toward lower-cost settings, oncology care increasingly happens in ambulatory centers, outpatient clinics, and home environments that lack these built-in safety controls, creating inherently higher exposure risks.

When Responsibility Gets Blurred, Safety Gaps Emerge
This decentralization creates a complex web of handoffs that didn’t exist when treatment stayed within hospital walls. A single oncology infusion now might involve central pharmacy preparation, transport to an ambulatory facility, administration by outpatient nursing staff, and potential continuation at home with visiting nurses or family caregivers.

Real-World Risk Scenarios in Decentralized Care
Consider these increasingly common situations where hazardous drug handling occurs outside traditional hospital controls:

• Ambulatory Infusion Centers: Outpatient nurses disconnect chemotherapy syringes dozens of times daily without hospital-grade safety controls.
• Inter-Facility Transport: Pre-filled syringes traveling between facilities risk leakage and contamination during transport.
• Home Infusion Scenarios: Home health nurses manage disconnections in uncontrolled environments with limited safety resources.

Addressing Safety Across Diverse Care Settings
Elcam’s OLAV™ Closed Male Luer Connector addresses these challenges by creating a closed system for syringes and IV administration sets, OLAV helps minimize exposure to hazardous drugs during preparation, transport, administration and disposal. Compatible with NIOSH requirements for safe handling of hazardous drugs¹, the OLAV integrates seamlessly into existing workflows while providing consistent protection across all care settings.

How OLAV Addresses Decentralization Challenges

• Consistent Protection: The automatic closure upon and the non-detachable locking collar minimize drips, spills, accidental disconnections that create exposure risks in settings with fewer engineering controls and immediate safety resources.
• Universal Compatibility: OLAV works with standard female luer connections, meaning the same safety protection travels with patients from hospital to ambulatory center to home. Care teams don’t need different devices or procedures for different locations.
• Transport Protection: The permanent connection design provides reliable protection during inter-facility transport, addressing one of the most vulnerable points in decentralized care. The specially designed dust cap adds an extra layer of protection. Pre-filled syringes can travel safely between pharmacy and clinic without risk of leakage or contamination.
• Workflow Integration: Because OLAV requires no changes to current practice patterns, it can be adopted across an entire care network without disrupting established procedures. This is crucial for decentralized care, where multiple organizations and care teams must coordinate their approaches.

Maintaining Safety Standards Across Care Settings
As oncology treatment continues its migration beyond hospital walls, healthcare systems need safety solutions that are as mobile and adaptable as the care itself. The same rigorous protection patients receive in hospital settings must extend seamlessly to ambulatory centers, outpatient clinics, and home environments.

OLAV’s approach to chemotherapy safety recognizes that effective hazardous drug handling in today’s healthcare environment requires solutions that work consistently across the entire care continuum. By providing reliable protection that requires minimal training and workflow adjustment, OLAV helps healthcare systems maintain safety standards even as care delivery becomes increasingly decentralized.

The future of oncology care is distributed, patient-centered, and increasingly complex. The safety solutions that protect patients and caregivers must be equally adaptable, traveling wherever treatment happens and providing consistent protection regardless of setting.

For more information about how OLAV can help your healthcare system maintain safety standards across decentralized care locations, visit elcam-medical.com/olav.

¹ This is not a Closed System Drug Transfer (CSTD) device as defined in NIOSH Alert: Preventing exposure to antineoplastic and other hazardous drugs in health care settings, US dept. of Health and Human Services publication; no.2004-165 p.44, Sept.2004