Background
North Eastern Melbourne Integrated Cancer Services (NEMICS) established cancer supportive care projects across four health services in 2009. The projects aimed to heighten awareness of supportive care needs in cancer care and embed routine supportive care screening, assessment and triage. Efforts focussed on developing and implementing systems and processes to support screening in local health service contexts.
Providing sustainable supportive care to address patients’ needs presents challenges for all NEMICS health services.
Aim
Share lessons for implementing sustainable models of supportive care
Lessons learned
Project Officers driving the implementation of supportive care screening have identified enablers and barriers for implementing a sustainable supportive care model. These apply across a range of health care settings.
Opportunities
Promoting sustainability through capacity building:
• Individual level: The opportunity exists to better understand the value of checklists in enabling patients to identify and report concerns. Evidence-based self-management support models are increasingly applied in the management of chronic health conditions and are worthy of further attention in the oncology setting.
• Health service level: commitment to workforce development, including training in communication skills. Development of infrastructure to support models of care that address psychosocial needs across the cancer trajectory. Awareness of wellness and supportive care programs and their integration within traditional models of care.
• System level: Better integration and relationship building between existing community health, rehab and oOrganisations such as Cancer Council Victoria.
Conclusion
Supportive Care screening is just the tip of the iceberg. Work is required to create a greater understanding across health sectors of the impact of a cancer diagnosis and implications for determining and responding to patient identified concerns across the five domains of supportive care. Developing a sustainable model of screening requires capacity building at an individual, health service and system level.