The Wellington Blood & Cancer Centre (WBCC) at Wellington Regional Hospital is one of a number of our hospitals using Continuous Ambulatory Delivery Device (CADD) pumps, which fit easily into a backpack and deliver chemotherapy at home or on the go.
This is great news for patients requiring prolonged chemotherapy treatments which can require a stay of up to five days on a ward. The practice change at WBCC – led by our Haematology Clinical Nurse Specialists – reduces the need for hospital stays. Since the roll-out of the pumps in July 2024, 49 inpatient bed-days have been freed up, enabling the hospital to accommodate more patients.
The backpacks also free up cancer patients to live their lives more fully and spend more time in their own homes.
“Having the pump was an absolute blessing,” says one patient, Raquel, who recently had this treatment. “It allowed me to stay at home for a month, experiencing a sense of normalcy while receiving continuous, lifesaving cancer treatment. I wasn’t confined to a hospital bed, attached to a fixed infusion pump or using critical resources. Carrying a backpack for a month was like a bit of an adventure - I felt like Dora the Explorer.”
Eligible patients are those requiring chemotherapy to be administered outside of the usual chemotherapy day ward hours. This could involve continuous infusions or twice-daily dosing which are given to patients with aggressive lymphomas or acute leukaemias. They also have to be medically stable i.e. don’t require the usual monitoring (vital signs, nursing assessments, daily ward round medical assessments) which more unstable patients would need.
Patients using the backpack pumps are able to call a cancer nurse at any time if needed. The chemotherapy drugs are changed by day ward nursing staff, which requires minimal time spent visiting the hospital.
Sadly, not all patients are cured by their treatment and those extra few nights at home with their family is very valuable.
This principle of ‘virtual’ inpatients or ‘hospital-in-the-home’ is well developed in larger haematology departments overseas. There are nurses in Wellington Hospital who have worked using similar solutions in the UK, Canada and Australia. The same chemotherapy backpacks being used in Wellington have been used for outpatients in Dunedin Hospital for at least six years. Colleagues in Dunedin have been very helpful and we’re largely using their protocols, says the team at WBCC.
Home-based chemotherapy is gaining momentum as a preferred option for cancer treatment around the world, reflecting broader trends in healthcare that prioritize patient autonomy, personalized care and the need to optimize hospital resources. It simultaneously improves patient care, frees up beds and provides great options for patients giving them more freedom.
Photo Captions: Wellington Regional Hospital patient Raquel is out and about exploring while wearing one of the backpack pumps administering her immunotherapy treatment.
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