Efforts at implementing survivorship care plans have met with limited success in oncology practice, in part due to the time required to complete them, the lack of role clarity, and the lack of reimbursement for time to complete the documents. In response, ASCO convened a Survivorship Care Planning Workgroup to identify essential components of survivorship care plans and develop a revised ASCO template with the aim of overcoming barriers to their implementation. The resultant “ASCO Clinical Expert Statement on Cancer Survivorship Care Planning” is reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice by Mayer and colleagues.1 Deborah K. Mayer, PhD, of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is the corresponding author for the JOP article.
The main elements of the ASCO statement are summarized here, consisting of recommendations regarding components of the treatment summary and follow-up care plan that constitute the survivorship care plan. The new survivorship care plan template is available at asco.org/practice-research/asco-cancer-survivorship-compendium.
The recommendations focus on elements of survivorship care plans that are “both essential and feasible to collect” and include much less detail than prior ASCO templates, thus addressing barriers associated with the time required for their completion. The sharper focus of the new recommendations not only ensures that necessary information is collected and communicated, but also means that the survivorship care plan document alone will not be sufficient to address all concerns and needs of survivors. The authors noted, “ASCO and other organizations could develop resource toolkits for survivors as supplements to the information provided in the survivorship care plan.”
Key Components of Treatment
Key Components of Follow-up
Pilot Study
In a pilot study of the new survivorship care plan template (including 45 completed survivorship care plans at 11 practice sites), the following items were rated on a scale of 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree by personnel completing the survivorship care plan: Survivorship care plan was easy to complete—mean score = 3.5; Time to complete survivorship care plan was reasonable—3.5; Clear what information was needed—3.9; Easy to obtain information for survivorship care plan—4.1; Template includes important elements for survivorship care plan—4.5; Information is sufficient for survivorship care plan—4.1; and Template will be useful in discussing follow-up care plans—4.7.
The average time to complete the survivorship care plan was 30 minutes. Among the 11 sites, the document was completed by a nurse practitioner at 4, nurse at 3, nurse with administrator or clerical personnel at 2, physician at 1, and social worker at 1. ■
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit jop.ascopubs.org.
Reference
1. Mayer DK, et al: American Society of Clinical Oncology clinical expert statement on cancer survivorship care planning. J Oncol Pract 10:345-351, 2014.
See commentary by Mary McCabe, RN, MS, here.
As the saying goes, “Timing is everything.” And so it is with the recently released ASCO Clinical Expert Statement on survivorship care planning.1 Although there has been extensive discussion and debate about the use of survivorship care plans since the publication of the 2005 Institute of Medicine ...