Evaluating Cancer Survivorship Care Models

Summary

The Evaluating Cancer Survivorship Care Models project is an innovative 3-year study that is collecting data to help understand how to best deliver follow-up care to cancer survivors. Cancer is a complex disease requiring complex treatments that can cause lasting impacts after treatment ends. Some patients face physical, psychosocial, spiritual and/or practical challenges as they adjust to life after cancer. Fortunately, health care providers have begun to focus on the consequences of cancer and its treatment and are more actively working with cancer survivors to manage post-treatment needs and care.

Led by the George Washington University and funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, this project brings together representatives from the Commission on Cancer, the Cancer Support Community, LIVESTRONG and the American Cancer Society as well as cancer survivors and healthcare professionals to better understand how different strategies or models of care impact outcomes that are most important to cancer survivors. The project will focus on survivors of breast, prostate and colorectal cancers and will be relevant for understanding the needs and preferences of survivors of other cancers as well. The emphasis is on patient-centered outcomes, which are outcomes that are most significant to patients, such as patient satisfaction and quality of life.

Conditions

• Quality of Life
• Cancer

Interventions

OTHER

Consultative Specialized Survivorship Clinic (CSSC)

CORE COMPONENTS: Provides most Tier 1 Essential Elements directly through a dedicated survivorship visit. Services include the survivorship care plan, psychosocial care, health promotion services and symptom management. This model typically: 1) has a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant as patients' primary point of contact, 2) has organizational support via dedicated resources, senior management buy-in and quality improvement activities; 3) bills for survivorship services; 4) systematizes care coordination with other clinicians; and 5) provides referrals for screenings for new cancers/recurrences and surveillance for cancer and the impacts of treatment. It is the most likely of the three models to transition patients fully back to their primary care providers.

OTHER

Longitudinal Specialized Survivorship Clinic (LSSC)

CORE COMPONENTS: Delivers most Tier 1 Essential Elements directly through a series of dedicated visits at planned intervals and as patient needs. Services include the SCP, surveillance for impacts of treatment, screenings for new cancers/recurrences, health promotion education, psychosocial care and symptom management. This model typically: 1) introduces survivorship care during treatment; 2) is led by an NP or a PA who is patients' primary point of contact; 3) engages comprehensive provider teams with input from oncologists, social workers, nutritionists and pharmacists; and 4) is likely to have moderate senior management commitment and dedicated resources. This model is less likely to bill for survivorship services and have care coordination protocols to transition patients back to PCP than the Consultative Specialized model.

OTHER

Oncology Embedded Survivorship Clinic (OESC)

CORE COMPONENTS: Integrates survivorship care with standard treatment and post-treatment follow-up care on on-going basis as patient needs, often through referral. Services are likely to begin before the end of treatment, typically by the treating oncologist with support from an NP/PA, patient navigator or social worker who is patients' primary point of contact. Responsibility for SCP development and delivery varies. There is no dedicated survivorship care team in this model; instead the treatment team takes on this responsibility. This model is less likely to enjoy dedicated resources, have commitment from senior management, and bill for survivorship services. This model is also less likely to systematize care coordination with other clinicians, and oncologists in this model rarely release their patients fully to their PCPs.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• George Washington University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• K. Holly Mead, PhD · The George Washington University

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2013-07-31

Primary Completion

2016-10-31

Completion

2016-10-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations