Management of the child with cancer on an outpatient basis.
More and more of the children are being cared for on an outpatient basis at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Center. When there is a choice between admitting the child or caring for him on an ambulatory basis, the parent usually chooses the latter.  The census of pediatric ambulatory patient visits has increased from 6,000 in 1969, to 14,724 in 1974, as shown in Table 1. Each year the number of procedures increases, and each year more parents find this method of delivering patient care less disruptive to the family unit and more desirable, in every way, for the child under treatment. With the continuing increase in the number of patients and changes in the complexity of treatment, we find ourselves constantly changing our methods of delivering care. Today we have some children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia who have never needed hospitalization; all of their treatment has been given on an outpatient basis. We hope, in the future, that cancer care will become so refined tha the majority of our patients need not be separated from their homes and families-that their care can be given completely on an outpatient basis. In the last five years many changes have been made in treating the child with cancer, and I suspect the next five years will see even greater improvement. It is important, then, when managing the care of this very special child on an ambulatory basis, to keep both the physical structure of the clinic and the clinic policies flexible, in order to accommodate the new methods of treatment that are constantly being introduced.
D000293:Adolescent; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D002648:Child; D003376:Counseling; D006749:Hospital Design and Construction; D006782:Hospitals, Special; D006801:Humans; D007945:Leukemia, Lymphoid / Q000628:therapy; D008499:Medical Records; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000451:nursing / Q000628:therapy*; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000628:therapy; D009519:New York City; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000628:therapy; D010290:Parents; D010347:Patient Care Planning; D013663:Teaching