Hope on Wheels

There are three Aims for the Award: 1. Develop an AYA Oncology new patient “backpack” orientation program. AYA backpacks stocked with gender appropriate items will be given to newly-diagnosed AYA oncology patients. Dianna Holtzhauer, the nurse practitioner who leads our AYA Program, will develop the program to help orient 15-29 year old newly diagnosed cancer patients to their oncology care. Materials would include a new patient orientation packet, educational materials, wellness items and an iPad to enable communication between the AYA patient and AYA staff (blogs, texts, community building). 2. Launch an AYA Life Support Educational Series. To supplement the multidisciplinary psychosocial support that we offer our AYA patients, we will develop and launch a quarterly AYA Life Support Educational Series. We will hold these sessions after hours in a suitable space within Kentucky Children’s Hospital, offer dinner/refreshments to our patients and their families, and have AYA-relevant presentations and workgroups on topics such as financial planning, career and college opportunities, healthy eating/cooking and stress management. 3. Update the 6 clinic examination rooms and designate 3 rooms for AYA in the DanceBlue Pediatric Oncology Clinic. Our exam rooms are large and currently outfitted with a small desk, 2-3 chairs and an examination table. Each could accommodate space for comfortable seating to facilitate discussions and counseling with patients outside of the medical examination part. Updates to the exam rooms will make them friendlier to the pediatric and AYA patients in our practice. As part of this effort, we would designate 3 of the 6 examination rooms as “AYA rooms” to make them more appropriate for the 15-29 year old population. The multidisciplinary care that the AYA patients receive in the DanceBlue Pediatric Oncology Clinic necessitates that patients remain in a room while our AYA specialists see them in consultation. We’d like to make these rooms more AYA-friendly by incorporating themes to the room (music, sports, nature) and including a space for workstations with a desk and charging stations for the patients’ electronic devices.