open access: U.S. - ASCO Recommendations for Achieving High-Quality Cancer Survivorship Care Recommendation

ASCO Recommendations for Achieving High-Quality Cancer Survivorship Care Recommendation


Clinical guidance - Table 5

Develop and disseminate guidance to standardize the long-term follow-up care of adult cancer survivors

Develop evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, assessment tools, and screening instruments to help identify and manage late effects of cancer and its treatment

Make this guidance accessible to oncology providers in all practice settings as well as to primary care providers

Use general health guidelines/guidance existing outside the oncology sphere when providing care for cancer survivors

Models of survivorship care

Promote successful models of survivorship care and tools that optimize the transition process between oncology and primary care providers


Promote a shared-care model for survivorship care that includes communication between the oncology specialist and PCP and successful transition of the patient from the oncology setting to primary care setting post treatment, using a risk-stratified approach as part of the survivorship care plan

Partner with other organizations to support demonstration programs to test models of coordinated, interdisciplinary survivorship care in diverse
communities and across systems of care

Assuring high-quality survivorship care

Establish standardized ways to monitor and improve the quality of survivorship care provided to patients

Promote strategies to ensure that every survivor receives a written coordinated treatment summary and follow-up care plan and that providers are reimbursed for this service by third-party payers

Encourage all oncology practice settings to implement quality improvement programs, such as QOPI, to monitor and improve care for all cancer survivors

Develop quality of survivorship care measures through public-private partnerships and quality assurance programs (eg, QOPI) to monitor and improve the care that all survivors receive, and integrate these measures as key components of the oncology rapid-learning system

Provider education

Expand survivorship-related education and training opportunities for oncology providers that promote interdisciplinary, shared-care models of survivorship care delivery

Promote the evidence-based use of survivorship care plans and other tools to increase communication, coordination of care, and provider confidence in providing survivorship care within the shared-care model

Advocate for increased medical education curriculum funding to provide all providers (including oncologists and PCPs) access to adequate tools, resources, and knowledge to care for the growing number of survivors

Education for survivors and their families

Increase education for cancer survivors and their families about information that can affect their survivorship

Identify and promote action-oriented messages via the ASCO patient education and communication channels for survivors on the topics of health and wellness, secondary disease prevention, and psychosocial coping

Encourage providers to identify expert and reputable survivor referral resources for their practice, with the goal of ensuring survivors and their families are well educated and capable of advocating for their best interests throughout their survivorship

Research

Increase survivorship research and expand mechanisms for its conduct.

Assess survivorship research portfolios funded by federal, state, and private entities, identify knowledge gaps related to underrepresented patient populations and health-related outcomes of interest, and build a strategy to address these gaps

Leverage the NCI cooperative group reorganization to advance a cancer survivorship agenda within the context of NCI-sponsored clinical trials

Policy and advocacy
 
Ensure that cancer survivors receive the full range of services necessary to treat their disease by promoting policies to improve the quality of survivorship care for patients and their families

Advocate for federal and state policymakers to act to ensure that all cancer survivors have access to adequate and affordable health insurance.

Improve Medicare reimbursement to cover survivorship services provided by health care providers, including services related to surveillance, prevention, management of late effects, and care coordination

Define a set of essential health benefits for cancer survivors, and advocate for coverage of these services

Educate policymakers on what cancer survivorship is and why it is important, and advocate for legislation to enhance survivorship care and funding of research to improve this care

Advocate for Congress to push the CDC, other collaborating institutions, and states to develop comprehensive cancer control plans that include
consideration of survivorship care and to promote the implementation, evaluation, and refinement of existing cancer control plans

Advocate for increased funding for survivorship research to aid in the creation of evidence-based comprehensive survivorship care guidelines