Integrated practice units present an opportunity over siloed survivorship care settings

• Published in: Supportive care in cancer Vol. 30; no. 8; pp. 6375 - 6379
• Main Authors: Jain, Urvish, Jain, Bhav, Dee, Edward Christopher, Jain, Pankaj, Palakodeti, Sandeep
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.08.2022; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Cancer; Clinical outcomes; Commentary; Continuity of care; Innovations; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Nursing; Nursing Research; Oncology; Pain Medicine; Quality of care; Rehabilitation Medicine; Survivor; United States > US; Value-based care delivery; Integrated care; Health outcome measurement; Integrated practice unit; Survivorship care
• ISSN: 0941-4355; 1433-7339
• DOI: 10.1007/s00520-022-06964-0

Given the rapidly rising cancer burden in the USA, the need to innovate survivorship care for oncology patients is rising rapidly. The current body of empirical evidence in survivorship care has focused on care provided by general practitioners (GP) and specialists/surgeons (SS). In particular, current evaluations address cost of care, cancer recurrence, quality of life, and overall survival of patients, with results indicating no statistically significant differences in GP- and SS-led care models and little emphasis on the broader characteristics of care settings. We fill this gap in survivorship care by introducing a perspective on the potential for holistic care delivery with a multidisciplinary team approach at integrated practice units (IPUs). Additionally, we propose a comprehensive examination of survivorship care across GP-, SS-, and IPU-led settings to provide researchers and practitioners with solid ground to determine the optimal survivorship care model, considering four key characteristics: (1) operating mode and skills, (2) cost and accountability of care, (3) health outcome measurement, and (4) workflow and scheduling.