EmailCare Coordination
What is care coordination?
Care coordination is a comprehensive approach to achieving continuity of care for patients. This approach seeks to ensure that care is delivered in a logical, connected and timely manner so that the medical and personal needs of the patient are met.
In the context of cancer, care coordination encompasses multiple aspects of cancer care delivery including multidisciplinary team meetings, psychosocial assessment and the provision of required care, referral practices, data collection, development of common protocols, information provision and individual clinical treatment.
The Victorian approach is to redesign systems of care as a way of ensuring that care coordination becomes the function and responsibility of the whole health service and multidisciplinary team and not just the role of an individual (care) coordinator. This is to ensure that initiatives implemented address both the process by which care is delivered and the needs of the majority of cancer patients as they move through their pathway of care.
Improving cancer care coordination in Victoria
The policy document has been developed to guide the improvements in coordinated cancer care at one or more levels of the health care system. The document outlines three key strategic directions:
- Strengthening information sharing between care providers and between health care events.
- Improving cancer service delivery so they are complementary and timely.
- Building effective relationships and links.
How does this model relate to the other cancer reform work?
Victoria’s model for coordinated cancer care incorporates the structures established to drive change (the Integrated Cancer Services and Local Collaborating Tumour Groups) and the models that describe the requirements for optimal delivery of care (Patient Management Frameworks) that is safe, of high quality and consistent with best practice.
Care coordination is one of four identified key priority areas for reform including multidisciplinary care, supportive care and reducing unwanted variation in practice. It is recognised that the four priority areas are integrally linked.
For further information please contact Spiridoula Galetakis on Tel (03) 9096 2131 or by email at spirdoula.galetakis@health.vic.gov.au
