The development of a webtool for health professionals to adequately refer oncological patients to supportive care

The development of a supporting tool for health professionals to adequalty refer oncological patients to supportive care

Introduction

More people are surviving cancer thanks to better treatments. In Belgium, there were 472 360 people alive at the end of 2020 who had received a cancer diagnosis between 2011 and 2020. Yet, not all patients have equal access to supportive care (after treatment), mainly due to a lack of knowledge among the professionals on available supportive care services. This project aims at filling in that gap by developing a webtool that provides a reliable and up to date overview of providers and services offering supportive care for (hemato )oncological patients in Belgium.

Methods

Phase 1 (finished):

First, screening of guidelines and literature to identify supportive care needs among (hemato)-oncological patients. Second, discussion with professionals and patients during 10 thematic working group sessions on the list with identified needs: (1) validate and complete the needs to be addressed, (2) develop the structure of the webtool, and (3) preliminary discuss the inventory of available supportive care services.

Phase 2 (ongoing):

Screening of guidelines to identify the evidence-based supportive care interventions for the needs.

Linking the evidence-based interventions to the available professionals and institutions in Belgium offering supportive care. Developing an overview of the legal framework, accessibility to the social security system, and costs of the available supportive care services.

Phase 3 (ongoing):

Building a database with the contact details of the professionals and institutions or refer to existing ones.

Results

A list with approximately 110 needs and problems among (hemato-)oncological patients was identified. The results of the thematic working group sessions seem to indicate that the Belgian healthcare system has the potential to offer supportive care for most of the identified needs. However, participants raised the lack of a structural framework and a common vision and systematic approach for supportive oncological care in Belgium.

Further, a preliminary structure for the webtool was developed and we started with screening of the guidelines to identify the evidence-based supportive care interventions for the needs. An overview of the level of evidence of the interventions per guideline is being developed.

Conclusion

The webtool will aid professionals in referring their patients to supportive oncological care in Belgium as it concentrates the information and databases necessary for referral. The process for developing the webtool provides the opportunity to detect gaps in supportive care provision, leading to recommendations to better address patients’ needs, encouraging structural approach and funding of organisation and research in supportive cancer care.