After Lacey Martin’s leukemia didn’t respond to initial rounds of chemotherapy and after she spent 10 weeks hospitalized for a stem cell transplant, the 11-year-old New Hampshire girl went home March 2 with an external line for medications that her mother would have to flush and clean twice a day. Lacey’s immune system and infection-fighting ability were so weakened from her treatment that she was under isolation precautions for six months after she left the hospital. Any bloodstream infection contracted through the line, which exited her chest, would be serious and potentially life-threatening.

It is terrifying knowing your child is so susceptible to bacteria and infection and you’re doing it in the house, with kids running around and the dog. I needed to know how to do it right, and I needed to know I could do it.

Caring for a child’s central line at home is, to say the least, a daunting responsibility.

“It’s extremely scary,” says Crystal Martin, Lacey’s mother. “It is terrifying knowing your child is so susceptible to bacteria and infection and you’re doing it in the house, with kids running around and the dog. I needed to know how to do it right, and I needed to know I could do it.”

This is the frontier of efforts to improve the quality of care. With more and more complex tasks moving from the hospital ward to the home, improving inpatient safety and quality of care is only the first step. After collaborating with other pediatric oncology programs to successfully reduce inpatient central-line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs), Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center has now launched an initiative to reduce outpatient CLABSIs.

The Martins are among the first families to participate.

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