Nearly three years in the making, the Total Cancer Care Survivorship Initiative at Tampa-based Moffitt went live in late August with a patient Web portal, starting with colon cancer survivors. “The goal is to follow survivors for the rest of their lives to reduce recurrence of cancer through personalized follow-up care and lifestyle changes, and to catch any recurrences early. The program also will provide patients with a detailed summary of their care to educate them and other providers about the treatment history and any risk-related effects.
“It’s really an opportunity to let patients, once their treatment is complete, get on with their lives and make lifestyle changes they want to make,” says Paul Jacobsen, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior at Moffitt. But the treatment summary also will support continuity of care, Jacobsen adds. For instance, if cancer returns, many patients don’t remember much about their initial treatment except that they had chemotherapy.”
Article
Joseph Goedert, Information Management Magazine, September 2009
