Journey Forward Introduces Tool to Help Cancer Survivors Initiate an Easy-to-Complete Survivorship Care Plan
<0> National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship:Jordan Jennings, 301-650-9127orUCLA Cancer Survivorship Center:Shaun Mason, 310-206-2805orOncology Nursing Society:Jeanette Kent, (412) 859-6246orWellPoint:Jill Becher, 262-523-4764orGenentech:Charlotte Arnold, 650-467-6800 </0>
Journey Forward, a leader in Survivorship Care Planning, is moving forward patient-centered care by enhancing its suite of free, award-winning survivorship care planning tools with . was created to help cancer survivors initiate care planning with their health care providers by starting the process with an easy-to-complete survivorship care plan that can then be finalized with the health care team, including their primary care provider, to monitor their long-term health care.
Journey Forward has gained valuable support from the cancer community and has been recognized as an innovator in survivorship care planning. Most recently, was one of three finalists in the nationwide ‘Crowds Care for Cancer: Supporting Survivors’ Challenge, supported by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in conjunction with the National Cancer Institute. As a finalist in this Challenge, was featured on talk radio, To listen, go to:. Journey Forward was also recognized with the 2011 Health Impact Award, a Gold Star Cancer Patient Education Network award, and a past BlueWorks award from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and Harvard School Department of Health Care Policy.
joins the Survivorship Care Plan Builder (SCPB) as innovative tools from Journey Forward. The SCPB is a free software solution for oncology professionals to develop a treatment summary and care plan along with recommended surveillance guidelines for survivors. Based on the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) templates, Journey Forward developed Breast, Colon, Lung, Lymphoma and Generic templates in the SCPB software. In a forthcoming new release, the SCPB will include the ability to build custom templates, thus supporting all cancer types and empowering clinicians to tailor plans for their patient’s unique needs. If a patient’s oncology provider does not provide a care plan, the patient can easily begin the process with and then complete it with the help of their oncology team. This new tool encourages the patient to report basic treatment information, respond to a symptom assessment to discuss with the health care provider, a query about follow up care scheduling, and a section on what to watch for or expect in the future.
Journey Forward’s SCPB software and survivorship care plan, including , reside on the user’s computer platform; Journey Forward houses no data and thus the patient’s privacy is completely protected. Survivorship Care Plans can be transmitted electronically, printed and appended to electronic health records. And unlike other survivorship care tools, the Journey Forward Survivorship Care Plan Builder is fully customized to the patient: a full treatment summary including diagnosis and treatment is captured, the patient’s care team is identified and surveillance measures are identified and assigned to care team members. The resulting survivorship care plan becomes a document that helps the survivor know when and what are the next steps post-treatment.
Journey Forward is a unique collaboration of organizations including UCLA’s Cancer Survivorship Center, the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship, the Oncology Nursing Society, WellPoint and Genentech that has promoted Survivorship Care Planning since it was identified as a significant gap in care by the 2005 Institute of Medicine (IOM) “Lost in Transition” report. The report found survivors are ‘lost in transition’ as they move from active treatment to survivorship. With no current system of coordinated follow-up care, Journey Forward was developed to help bridge the gap.
Journey Forward continues to lead and innovate in survivorship care planning to ensure that the nation’s 14 million cancer survivors are no longer ‘lost in transition.’
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