Integration of Cancer Survivorship Care and Primary Care Practice

More than 10 years ago, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a seminal report,From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition. In this publication, the IOM highlighted the now more than 15 million US adults with a history of cancer and outlined necessary components of high-quality survivorship care. Not unexpectedly, implementation of the IOM recommendations relied on the availability of well-informed and responsive primary care survivorship clinicians. Yet, in the time since that report, the primary care and oncology workforce has shrunk (and will continue to do so), while clinician uncertainty and survivorship knowledge gaps persist. Therefore, although oncologists, patients, and other stakeholders are looking toward a primary care context for high-quality and life-sustaining survivorship care, uneven survivorship care delivery has continued. Unfortunately, failure to meet the health care needs of cancer survivors seems to result in adverse outcomes.
Source: JAMA Internal Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Source Type: research