Same-Day Scheduling Cuts Cancer Med Costs

Intravenous cancer medications are costly, and some chemotherapy drugs are stable for only a few hours. To help reduce waste, one oncology pharmacy team scheduled patients who receive the same IV cancer drugs to receive their treatments on the same day, often back to back. This helped the facility avoid discarding unused medication. They also began using smaller vials. The average weekly waste was cut nearly in half from $4,322 to $2,196. That projects to an annual savings of more than $110,000.

Here's What Worked

• Reducing cancer IV medication waste
• Scheduling back-to-back, same-day appointments
• Using smaller vials

 What can your team do to consolidate resources and improve efficiency?