Implementing survivorship care planning in a large integrated cancer program

Affiliations

Aurora Health Care

Abstract

Background: Aurora Health Care is comprised of 15 hospitals and 22 oncology clinics. Aurora Cancer Care (ACC), a Commission on Cancer (CoC) accredited program, diagnoses and treats 7,000 adult cancer patients annually, more than any other healthcare system in Wisconsin. The CoC’s Survivorship Standard 3.3 requires accredited cancer programs to provide cancer patients with survivorship counseling and a written care plan. ACC was challenged to develop a consistent model of survivorship care that can work at multiple sites across the system.

Methods: Workflow planning and education began at all oncology clinics in fourth quarter of 2014. Thirteen disease specific survivorship care plan templates were built into the EMR with some-auto population functionality. A system wide delivery plan was launched in first quarter of 2015 with the goal of targeting 10% of eligible patients. Initial focus was on breast cancer patients with some sites also including other cancers. The model of survivorship care is an “embedded consultation” in medical or surgical oncology with an advanced practice provider (APP) completing the care plan and meeting with the patient at the end of first line treatment.

Results: Initial required volumes were estimated based on 2013 registry data with a goal of completing approximately 700 care plans in 2015 to meet the 10% CoC standard. During Q1 & Q2 of 2015, 444 care plans were generated and given to patients, mostly for breast cancer survivors. The most significant barrier surrounded retrieving data from the EMR.

Conclusions: Data from the first half of 2015 demonstrates success with the approach. Aurora Cancer Care will exceed the benchmark of 700 care plans. There has been a high level of engagement with the APPs who have taken ownership of survivorship careplanning, contributing to the success of the program thus far. Because of difficulty retrieving data from the EMR, manual tracking was still required. Future modifications will address this and other barriers.

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Abstract

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