orals Inaugural Victorian Integrated Cancer Services Conference 2013

Breast Cancer Survivorship Program: Key themes from consultations with women, GPs and hospital staff – why these need to be uncovered and addressed for the development of a high quality, safe, sustainable model of survivorship care (#41)

Sita Vij 1 , Ines Rio 1 , Meron Pitcher 2 , Martha Hickey 3 , Lee Kennedy 4 , Kerry Shanahan 5 , Bruce Mann 5
  1. GP Liaison Unit, The Royal Women's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
  2. Western Health Breast Unit, Footscray, Victoria, Australia
  3. Dept Of Gynaecology, Royal Women's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
  4. BreaCan, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  5. The Breast Service of the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women's Hospitals, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

The Victorian Cancer Survivorship Program is a Victorian Department of Health initiative to focus on the survivorship aspects of cancer care.  The implementation of this new model of breast cancer survivorship and follow-up care into standard practice at Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital and Western Health, has involved partnership with community stakeholders and extensive consultation with women and health care professionals e.

Aim
With the overall aim of improving the quality of follow-up care for women, a sustainable, safe and acceptable model of survivorship care is being developed and refined through ongoing consultation with women, GPs, Breast Service and other hospital staff.

Methods
Key aspects include:
1.    Project governance involving four partner organisations – Royal Melbourne Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital, Western Health, BreaCan and Inner North West Melbourne Medicare Local
2.    Collaboration between hospital staff, consumers and GPs
3.    Ongoing iterative input from hospital clinicians, support staff, GPs and GP Liaison Units to develop and refine the model of care, processes, resources, delineation of roles and responsibilities including effective care coordination
4.    GP focus groups looking at the needs of GPs and the primary health care sector, including  issues, gaps and enablers in their ability  to provide ongoing, holistic and high quality care for women following breast cancer treatment
5.    Breast Service needs analysis to assess and enable the sustainability of processes and adequate support systems.

Results
Survivorship and follow-up care processes being implemented at the hospitals include nurse-led end-of-treatment consultations, the development of care plans for women following breast cancer treatment, and shared follow-up care arrangements between the Breast Service and GPs.

The presentation will explore how extensive stakeholder buy-in and consultation is shaping this into an effective, sustainable model of survivorship care, and how project resources and processes have been developed.