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Survivorship Care Plan Implementation in US Cancer Programs: a National Survey of Cancer Care Providers

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A Correction to this article was published on 21 November 2018

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Abstract

Survivorship care plans (SCPs)—documents intended to improve care for cancer survivors who have completed active treatment—are required, yet implementation is poor. We sought to understand SCP implementation in cancer programs in the USA with the objective of identifying opportunities for improvement. We recruited cancer care providers in the USA via several cancer care networks to participate in a survey regarding SCP implementation. We used descriptive statistics to analyze the data. Three hundred ninety-five providers from diverse cancer programs in 47 states and Washington, DC responded to the survey. The timing of SCP implementation varied across and within cancer programs, with approximately 40% of respondents reporting developing SCPs more than 3 months after primary treatment or adjuvant therapy completion. Nurse navigators were responsible for 48–58% of each stage of SCP implementation. Processes that could have been automated often occurred in-person or via phone and vice versa. Respondents reported spending more than 2 h per SCP to complete all stages of implementation, of which less than a third was reimbursed by third-party payers. We identified several opportunities for improving SCP implementation, including broadening the base of responsibility, optimizing modes of communication, decreasing the time required and increasing the funding available, and limiting variation in SCP implementation across and within cancer programs. Future work should assess the influence of approaches to SCP implementation on desired outcomes.

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Change history

  • 21 November 2018

    The original version of this article contained an error. Citation 17 in the original publication referenced the wrong article.

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Acknowledgements

The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), its Board of Governors, or Methodology Committee, or the official views of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences or the National Institutes of Health. We appreciate the input of the Survivorship Special Interest Group, George Washington Cancer Center’s PCORI-funded Generation and Translation of Evidence: An Oncology Community of Practice, a group created as a result of PCORI Contract 1426-GWU, as well as collaborating organizations who contributed to sample recruitment.

Funding

This project was an outgrowth of engagement activities supported by a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award (1426-GWU). This publication was supported by Award Number UL1TR001876 from the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Infrastructure that made this project possible was partially supported by Award Number UL1TR001876 from the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. SB also received funding from the National Institutes of Health through Grant KL2TR001109.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1103E McGavran-Greenberg, 135 Dauer Drive, Campus Box 7411, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7411, USA

    Sarah A. Birken & Alexandra Zizzi

  2. L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Sarah Raskin

  3. Institute for Patient-Centered Initiatives & Health Equity, The George Washington University Cancer Center, Washington, DC, USA

    Yuqing Zhang, Gema Lane & Mandi Pratt-Chapman

Authors
  1. Sarah A. Birken
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  2. Sarah Raskin
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  3. Yuqing Zhang
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  4. Gema Lane
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  6. Mandi Pratt-Chapman
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Correspondence to Sarah A. Birken.

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Birken, S.A., Raskin, S., Zhang, Y. et al. Survivorship Care Plan Implementation in US Cancer Programs: a National Survey of Cancer Care Providers. J Canc Educ 34, 614–622 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-018-1374-0

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