The contents of a regimen folder are sets of orders. Every order that a physician needs to care for a patient undergoing treatment is included in the regimen.
The Chemotherapy Builder is flexible, allowing you to decide the most appropriate set up for the regimen. The goals, of course, are to reduce the possibility of errors and minimize the time it takes to write chemotherapy orders. To do this, you must build regimens that provide complete, comprehensible orders and outline the course of treatment clearly.
Planning is the key to accomplishing those goals. Even for a very experienced user, it won't be easy to sit down at the computer with a random list of orders and create a regimen that really works well. A regimen may involve dozens or even hundreds of orders, and it won't save time or cut down on confusion to include them all in one long list.
By organizing the orders into groups, you can easily create separate order sets for each type: Chemotherapy, Antiemetics, General Care, and so on. You have complete control over the name as well as what orders go into every set.
For regimens that are affected by the cycle of treatment—for example, medication combinations that vary from cycle to cycle—you can create folders for every cycle. Each cycle folder has a distinct and descriptive name that you choose, and holds the order sets for that period in the course of treatment. One suggestion for getting the structure down before you begin to build: sketch it out on paper. Set up a classic outline, which translates very nicely into the Chemotherapy Builder layout.
Every regimen is linked to one or more diagnoses. To order a chemotherapy regimen, the physician must select a diagnosis, which limits the regimen options to those that apply.
Diagnoses are listed in the Diagnosis folder in alphabetical order. Before you begin to build a regimen, check to be sure that the ones you need are all there. If any diagnosis you need is missing, add it to the folder before continuing.
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