Nurse-Led Apheresis Service in a Pediatric Restructured Hospital: The Past, the Present, and the Future

Abstract

Apheresis nurses are well equipped with not only the critical thinking skills but also the important aspects of operating the apheresis machine. As the demand for advanced cellular therapies grew, there was a need to recruit and train more nurses to be competent in apheresis nursing. A new service model was evolved from a physician-led to a nurse-led apheresis service, which empowered the apheresis nurses to lead the service. Since the commencement of the nurse-led service, a total of 32 peripheral hematopoietic progenitor cells collections were documented, and the outcomes of the cell yield were tabulated to study the collection efficiency. Ninety-four percent of the targeted cell yield was achieved with no collections needing beyond 2 days of harvesting. No apheresis-related major adverse event was reported following the implementation of the new service model too.