As oncology care continues to shift into ambulatory infusion settings, nurses are caring for sicker patients, more complex regimens, and increasingly unpredictable days. Yet many infusion centers still rely on time-based models, nurse-to-chair ratios, or single acuity scores that fail to reflect the true drivers of nursing workload—and erode trust in staffing decisions.

This panel brings together leaders from the Oncology Nursing Society, Penn Medicine, UCSF Health, and LeanTaaS to share insights from Project Atlas, a collaborative research initiative focused on better understanding what drives workload intensity in oncology infusion. The discussion explores a multi-vector approach to acuity that incorporates treatment characteristics, patient factors, nursing context, and operational realities—rather than duration alone.

Panelists will discuss why traditional staffing assumptions break down in practice, what surprised them most in the findings, and how workload burden is shaped not only by who the patient is and what treatment they receive, but also by pace, coordination demands, and system-level workflows. The conversation will highlight why measuring workload intensity is foundational to workforce sustainability—and how greater transparency can strengthen nurse trust, support equitable assignments, and enable more proactive staffing decisions.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how emerging insights into acuity and workload can inform staffing strategy, skill mix, and operational decision-making in today’s complex infusion environments.