A growing movement in health care is going beyond the prescription pad to grapple with the complex, whole-life needs of patients with cancer.
Rather than strictly focusing on treatment to eradicate tumors, health professionals should also address patients’ social, emotional and spiritual needs and overall sense of well-being, according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies.
Leading a charge sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the IOM recently proposed a new standard of care through its report, “Cancer Care for the Whole Patient: Meeting Psychosocial Health Needs,” to ensure that cancer patients get important support services.
At City of Hope, the Sheri & Les Biller Patient and Family Resource Center is one of the nation’s first programs to embody that philosophy.
“The Biller Resource Center is about understanding what patients and their families and caregivers go through, listening to them and helping them solve problems, so they can fully focus on fighting cancer and living a healthy life,” said Matt Loscalzo, M.S.W., the center’s administrative director. The Biller Resource Center brings together a caring cast of professionals from across City of Hope: social workers, nutritionists, psychologists, pain and palliative care physicians, chaplains, psychiatrists and patient educators, just to name a few. It aims to knock down barriers among services to create a seamless care experience for City of Hope patients.
“You just don’t see this kind of effort in most cancer centers yet,” Loscalzo said. “We want to be the model.”
Over the last two decades, medicine has made dramatic gains on cancer. The five-year survival rate for the 15 most common cancers has grown from 43 to 64 percent for men and from 57 to 64 percent for women. But support for patients’ and caregivers’ emotional and social needs has not kept pace, and patients’ problems and challenges may compromise their quality of life — regardless of the success of their medical treatment.
The IOM report suggested that health-care providers improve services by first identifying patients’ needs, and then linking the patients and their families to services. For example, a mother with breast cancer might need childcare for her children so she can undergo treatment. She might also need counseling to learn how to talk to them about cancer. But without guidance, she might never know about resources that can help.
Providers should help patients manage their illness — responding to their complaints about nausea and pain, for example — and coordinate any visits with professionals in areas such as psychiatry and rehabilitation, the report advised. Finally, health-care professionals should follow up on the effectiveness of these services to ensure they work well.
That is already happening at City of Hope. Through a Biller Resource Center pilot program, staff members are screening patients in certain oncology clinics to learn about their needs and concerns and how they can benefit from City of Hope programs. They may want information about transportation or might need help from a social worker, for example.
A patient navigator also meets with new patients and serves as a guide throughout treatment to make sure that patients do not get lost in the system.
The center’s physical space will open this spring, but most support services already are available today. All services will be evaluated through patient feedback and constantly improved so that they will always represent the standard of care.
“It’s exciting to witness the extent of the positive impact that the Biller Resource Center is bringing to patients and their families, said Natalie Schnaitmann, director of operations at the Biller Resource Center. “And we know that we are just beginning.”
More information about the center is available at www.cityofhope.org/billercenter.
