Data to inform service planning is based on individual episodes in individual health services; reporting procedures and treatments in isolation from the overall patient experience. The cancer journey is often complex and lengthy, featuring multiple care settings and health professionals, crossing between private and public sectors and different types of care.
The Integrated Cancer Services are population-based models tasked with better coordinating and integrating cancer services within a defined geographic region. Understanding the existing cancer journeys is essential to planning and integrating care. NEMICS has developed ways to investigate the patterns of care for patients living in a region. Mapping the journey for patients using public and private hospital admission data with state-wide linkage identifier, provides us with key information about how patients are currently being managed; which health services they attend, how far they travel and for what treatment, the sequence of treatments and whether they attend public or private services. This approach allows us to investigate combinations of treatments and their order from available data sources across all patients who live in the region, minimising the need for detailed record audits.
For example, we can identify the range of treatments patients receive for colorectal cancer. 690 patients with colorectal cancer living in NEMICS underwent colorectal surgery. Of these, 334 were operated on in the public sector and 430 were in the private sector. 214 patients received chemotherapy in addition to surgery (91 public, 123 private). Detailed analysis of this pathway by location of treatment and patient residence will be presented.
By using novel approaches utilising existing cancer data across multiple service providers, NEMICS is able to inform how cancer care is provided for a population.