Cancer is the second cause of mortality in Europe and, in Spain, some 280,000 people are diagnosed each year with cancer, according to the Spanish Cancer Association (AECC). The incidence, rather than decreasing, increases. But these data are also accompanied by others that confirm that survival increases continuously: 55.3% of men and 61.7% of women survive more than five years, according to the latest report from the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM).
Too many hours of waiting
Cancer treatment is multidisciplinaryIn other words, it includes different therapeutic modalities that must be combined to give the patient the most appropriate treatment plan for him. The procedure that is followed depends mainly on the type of cancer and how advanced it is. Some people will receive only one treatment, although most will require a combination of several treatments, such as surgery with chemotherapy or radiation therapy. You may also receive immunotherapy, targeted therapy, or hormone therapy.
Whatever the case, the truth is that when someone faces a situation like this they have a lot to learn, what to think about and what to deal with. The traditional organization of the path followed by the patient implies that they have to go through various healthcare areas of the hospital before reaching the cancer treatment, which implies accumulating many hours of waiting and dead times for the blood test, waiting for the result, visit to the nurse and oncologist, preparation of treatment and dispensing of it.
All this is done, in most cases, at different times and on different days, which further complicates the patient’s situation. Fighting cancer therefore implies not only facing the disease but also having to spend a lot of time scheduling appointments, treatments, tests, travel, etc. But this could have its days numbered.
The patient at the center of all treatment
In addition to coping with the worry and stress of the diagnosis, the patient (and their family) has to cope with the stress of tests and treatments. The patient and his well-being therefore also have to be part of the treatment. And it is precisely for this purpose that the project “HOPE, Personalized Day Hospital” was born that the Jiménez Díaz Foundation It has been launched and led by Dr. Cristina Caramés, a specialist in Medical Oncology at the Madrid hospital.
“We are concerned not only that he will be cured, but that the treatment interferes the least in his daily life,” acknowledges Caramés. This explains very well what the objectives of this initiative are: to give the patient the greatest comfort and agility in treatment with the highest levels of safety. In practice, the patient only has one appointment at the Day Hospital and, without even having to change their chair, receives the treatment, the extraction is carried out, the analytical parameters are checked for normality and their condition is evaluated. clinical.
The four key axes of the HOPE project
To do this, the HOPE project includes four key factors: collection of clinical data in accordance with scientific evidence and the most internationally recognized quality programs and the standardization of the process to reduce errors; sistemas “point of care” to have the results of the analyzes in less than 5 minutes; automation of visits to unify four appointments into one; integration of Patient Portal with the electronic medical record so that the patient can communicate with the medical team when needed.
All this has allowed, according to Caramés, not only to reach the objective of “reducing waiting times by 75%, but it has also been improved to 80% and we hope to reach 100%”. Progress has also been made in the different types of cancer to which this initiative is applied: patients with metastatic breast cancer (the first to be treated under this initiative) have been followed by other patients with digestive, lung, melanoma, urothelial tumors and gynecological, among others.
The objective, in the future, is to expand care and that it reaches the home so that the patient can receive at home, through the tools PROMs (measurement of results reported by patients) and PREMs (analysis of the experience during the process), everything you need for self-care and that, through the Patient Portal, the patient can inform the medical team of any information and that they can act quickly if necessary.
For Caramés, in addition to improving health, we also “look for a very active participation of patients.” And it is that participating in cancer treatment and taking an active role is a factor that, according to the American Cancer Society, can help you get the best care from your team of doctors.
Initiatives like this always have additional meaning and advantages, but now more than ever, because Covid-19 forces us to increase preventive measures to reduce the risk of contagion.
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