During an outpatient stem cell transplant, all aspects of patient care – including conditioning chemotherapy, stem cell infusion, engraftment, and follow-up monitoring – take place in our outpatient clinic. Rather than staying in the hospital, patients return home or to a nearby hotel each day.
Outpatient stem cell transplants are just as safe and effective as inpatient transplants, and the care patients receive is the same for both settings.
Hear from our dedicated team of clinicians as well as patients sharing their own experiences on receiving a stem cell transplant in the outpatient setting.
Patient Referrals and Consults 617-632-6028 dana-farber.org/refer . We look forward to working together to care for our shared patients.
Stem Cell Transplant
Outpatient transplant is when we perform the entire process of a stem cell transplant in the clinic setting rather than doing the transplant inside the hospital. Transplant in the outpatient setting is just as safe and effective as transplant within the hospital, so they have the opportunity to usually sleep better, eat better, and be with their loved one, which is really important to a lot of people. I initially just dismissed the outpatient um option, but then. Thought about it some more, read in one of the binders about it that we had received, and the more we thought about it, the more that made a lot more sense for us. It took talking to the care team to ask questions, watching videos that they recommended for us to kind of just keep iterating and learning to trust and believing that we could do it. Our biggest concerns when we first heard we were doing outpatient is, oh my goodness, it's 3.5 hours from home and we have to be there every day. Where are we going to stay and how much is it going to cost? We stayed in a hotel that was about 3/4 of a mile away from Dana-Farber. All of that was set up through help from the hospital's research. Specialists. It allowed for us to have our own privacy and also allowing us the ability to stay active and keep moving throughout the whole 12 to 15 day long process. It was a lot more restful and comfortable than I think a long term hospital stay would have been. Patients undergoing outpatient transplant are seen in our clinic on a daily basis. They're seen by their care team who consists of an advanced practice provider, so a nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant, a dedicated pharmacist, a physician, and a dietitian. So I just really relied heavily on my care team and they were phenomenal. They really helped guide me through everything that I needed to get through. I would go immediately to the lab, I would have my blood drawn, and then get checked in for blood pressure and weight every day, and then based on what the blood results were showing that day, they would come up with a plan for different infusions that I might need. Patients often can be concerned about what happens if they get sick in the middle of the day or the night. They need to. know that we're here 24/7 to care for them, evenings and weekends, even when the clinic isn't open. A patient would call the direct line to a physician who would ask them questions about what's going on, see if this is something that can be managed at the hotel, and if it's not, they would direct them to the emergency room, which is very close to where the patient is staying. We Called at times when we were managing some of the side effects from the chemo, always got a response quickly. If you have any issues, even if it seems stupid, call us, you know, there's always somebody here for you and they were there. They were always somebody there at the other end of the line. We have a lot of patients who walk to and from their clinic appointments, from the lodging that we arranged. So sometimes that's up to 2 miles of walking that they get just coming to the clinic. Walking back and forth from the hotel to the hospital was great for us, and that's really important in preventing deconditioning, which can be common with long hospital stays. Once we got to the hotel room, we didn't want to be going in and out because there were a lot of protocols around his clothing. Um, to prevent infection, masking and wearing gloves. I would have a set of clothes that I would wear into Dana-Farber, go through the treatment process, and then put on this designated set of indoor hotel clothes. At one point, someone talked to us about how to manage. The nutrition requirements because there's a lot of rules about how food is prepped and when he can eat what frozen foods, frozen meals kind of hit all the marks they were looking for. So before we left, we found some frozen meals we liked and then trusting that we were just gonna do our best. It's really quite rewarding to see the patients go through this process, doing well and having an enhanced quality of life. Looking back, I think the outpatient option was a really great fit for us. The outpatient setting gave me freedom to be in my own comfort zone, in my own pajamas and someplace I was more comfortable with. It was really a wonderful option, and I think that Derek recovered all the better more quickly because of it.
