Nurses account for the largest group of professionals in the healthcare system and there are an estimated 29 million nurses worldwide (WHO, 2024). Nursing practice needs to be dynamic in order to respond to the changing needs of an aging population and the increasing incidence of chronic diseases (WHO, 2022; Hacker, 2024). Within the haematology setting, improvements in diagnosis, treatment and survival have contributed further to making patient care particularly complex. A review published in 2022, reported over 50 new drug approvals by the Food and Drug Administration during the period 2011-2021 for treatment of haematological malignancies (Sochacka-Cwikła et al. ), in particular 46 targeted therapies  Similarly in the non-malignant haematology setting, 34 new drugs were approved during the period 2018-2023 including novel therapies such as gene therapies for haemophilia and haemoglobinopathies, and immunotherapeutic targets for cytopenia (Shah et al., 2023). Therefore Haematology nursing is a complex and dynamic field and the nursing care of haematology patients and caregivers must not only acknowledge the expansion of treatment options for patients but also its impact on treatment delivery, recognition and management of potential side effects of these innovative treatments and what this means for staff and patient education. 

The Haematology Nurses and Healthcare Professionals Group (HNHCP) was formed in December 2014 to support nurses and other healthcare professionals through the rapidly evolving landscape of haematology and enable them to deliver optimal care to patients and support their families and provides up-to-date evidence based care and education. The HNHCP is a non-profit organisation whose members care for and work with patients who have haematological disorders both malignant and non-malignant including haemoglobinopathies, coagulation and thrombotic disorders. In order to further this agenda the group has developed collaborations with the Lymphoma Coalition, the Thalassemaia International Federation and EHA to aid in developing educational opportunities.

Education

Education is an important aspect of our activities and one of the key areas where HNHCP works is to develop educational resources for nurses. Since the creation of the group, a series of Learning Programs have been developed explaining diseases, diagnostics and staging, treatment and nursing management of patients with various conditions and treatments. To date educational resources have been developed on

• Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP) 2024 (2nd edition)
• Myeloma 2024 (2nd edition)
• Acute Leukaemia in Adults2020 
• Chronic Leukaemias (CML/CLL) 2023
• Lymphomas 2021
• CAR T cell Therapy 2022
• BiSpecific Antibody therapy 2024

It is essential to the group that this education is accessible to as many nurses and health care professionals so these materials which are free to download from the HNHCP website (www.hemcare.org) and they are available in 5 different languages English, French, German, Spanish and Italian and print copies are available for many of the programmes by contacting HNHCP. In addition all of the programmes have also been developed into online learning resources available in English language with the platform accessible via the website.

Conference

International networking can provide significant benefits for nurses in terms of collaboration, fostering new knowledge and gaining new perspectives on clinical scenarios (Gaisser et al., 2021). The HNHCP group strongly promotes international networking through the annual education conference and the 8th  Haematology Nurses & Healthcare Professionals Group Educational Conference was held on Friday 6th  & Saturday 7th November in the University Hospital Zürich, Switzerland. 

The aim of the conference is to provide specialist nursing education and updates and help to promote the field of haematology nursing.  This will help nurses and the other Healthcare Professionals in improving the care for patients with a malignant and non-malignant haematological disease.

The Educational Conference has demonstrated that it is extremely important to expand knowledge among nurses and other allied healthcare professionals.  Accessibility is for as many healthcare professionals as possible is important to us so there was simultaneous translation into German and was held a Hybrid event.

On Friday we opened with our keynote presentation by Dame Lesley Fallowfield looking at communication with patients and the many sad, bad and complex areas that need to be tackled and discussed. She particularly emphasised the role of nurses in shared decision-making processes with the role of nurses in helping the patient understand areas not fully understood. The day continued with presentations on venous access, mucositis, AML, Thalassemia and Myeloma looking at the medical, nursing and patient perspectives in these areas.  

The second day started the day with presentations looking at frailty assessment and maximising fitness in haematology patients and followed on with speakers looking at  approaches to nursing care, looking at the effects of polypharmacy in older patients and the need for a multidisciplinary approach to their management. Later in the day we tackled Bispecific Antibody therapy, ITP, survivorship, and skin care in the haematology patient. A full overview of the meeting is available in our newsletter on our website. 

The 10th HNHCP conference is currently being planned and will be held on Friday 7th  & Saturday 8th November 2025 in the University Hospital Zürich, Switzerland. Details will be available at www.hemcare.org .

Mairéad Ní Chonghaile 

St James’s Hospital Dublin Ireland

Mairéad Ní Chonghaile is the BMT Co-ordinator at St James’s Hospital, Dublin. Mairéad has been working in haematology and the area of stem cell transplantation for over 25 years.  She is actively involved in national and international societies and is the current Vice President of the HNHCP – a group established for nurses and health care professionals working within the field of haematology.

She is involved with education and lectures on the post graduate courses in Ireland and has been involved in the development of educational tools for Haematology and HSCT including Myeloma, ITP, VOD/SOS, Acute Leukaemia, Lymphoma, Chronic Leukaemia, BiSpecific antibodies & CAR T, as well as being the author or co-author of a number of book chapters dealing with haematology and HSCT issues. She has completed a number of post registration courses in haematology and oncology and has completed a MSc in Health Services Management.

 

References

1. Gaisser DJ, David T, Rath L, Clancy G, Lawrence C, Munoz-Rojas D, Jones U, Smalls J. International networking guidelines for nurses. Nursing. 2021;51(7): 24–32. https://doi-org.eoc.swissconsortium.ch/10.1097/01.NURSE.0000753964.21753.df
2. Hacker K. The Burden of Chronic Disease. Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes. 2024;8(1), 112–119. https://doi-org.eoc.swissconsortium.ch/10.1016/j.mayocpiqo.2023.08.005
3. Sochacka-Cwikła A, Maczynski M, Regiec A. FDA-Approved Drugs for Hematological Malignancies—The Last Decade Review. Cancers 2022;14, 87. https://doi.org/10.3390/ cancers14010087
4. Shah S, Padrnos L, Pruthi RK, Go RS. Keeping up with the Cartashians – Classical Hematology Drug Approvals over Past 5 Years. Blood 2023; 142 (Supplement 1): 7226. doi: https://doi.org/10.1182/blood-2023-175038
5. WHO. Nursing and midwifery. 2024. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/nursing-and-midwifery#:~:text=Key%20facts,the%20year%202030%20(1) [Accessed 06/06/2024]
6. WHO. Ageing and Health. 2022. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health [Accessed 06/06/2024]

Disclosure: This short article was provided by the The Haematology Nurses and Healthcare Professionals Group (HNHCP). No funding or publication fees were involved in the publication of this article.

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