Survivorship care planning

Survivorship planning is becoming more and more of an important issue in caring for cancer patients. Specifically, creating a survivorship care plan is becoming increasingly important and valuable. However, how each cancer clinic and cancer center goes about survivorship planning varies and, at least to my eyes, not one consistent method has risen to the top as the preferred way. So, I welcomed this article from Hahn and Ganz which looked at the survivorship care planning process in four very different institutions: an academic center, a community hospital, a primary-care medical group and a county hospital. Within each group the authors performed a semi-structured interview about their survivorship program and how they developed and used their survivorship care plans.

The long and the short of it is that there are many different ways to accomplish the same goal, and one can find an approach that best fits one's institution and needs. The care plans included evidence-based recommendations about follow-up plans, summaries of treatments, emotional distress screens, and nutrition and activity recommendations. Another take-home message from me is that survivorship teams are frequently more than just a physician or two. Several members of these teams included nurses, social workers, primary care, cancer psychologists and patient navigators. Much like the ‘personalized medicine’ that is such a catch phrase right now, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to survivorship care plans, and that, to steal a line from Martha Stewart, is a very good thing.