Nurse outreach reduces hospital stays, ED visits

Nurse outreach to high-risk metastatic lung cancer patients reduced unnecessary hospital admissions and emergency department visits compared with similar patients not receiving outreach, according to pilot study results presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting. Nurse navigators at Texas Oncology in Dallas contacted approximately 100 patients periodically depending on patient need and treatment schedule. In addition to reducing hospital visits, more than 70% of patients in the nurse outreach group received advance care planning support. Hospice utilization rates were 69% compared with 60% for the non-outreach group. Overall, the nurse outreach group resulted in $2.6 million in savings. The researchers say hospitals could implement nurse outreach to improve outcomes in other high-risk oncology populations. (Cancer Nursing Today article, 6/5/26)