In 2012, staff at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven (VACHS) decided to create a template for a Cancer Survivorship Treatment Summary and Care Plan (Survivorship Care Plan [SCP] and treatment summary are used interchangeably in this article and refer to the same document) in the VACHS Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) to be used as one component of a Multidisciplinary Cancer Survivorship Clinic. The clinic’s providers would be advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs), based in the Comprehensive Cancer Center of VACHS. This quality improvement project was created in response to the American College of Surgeons (ACoS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) Standard 3.3, effective January 1, 2012, which mandated that the cancer committee “develops and implements a process to disseminate a comprehensive care summary and follow-up plan to patients with cancer who are completing cancer treatment.” 1 According to ACoS CoC the process should be monitored, evaluated, presented, and documented at least annually to the cancer committee.
Creating the CPRS template took 9 months before the first SCPs were provided to patients in July 2013. Since that time, 210 SCPs have been provided to VACHS patients. Patient response was positive. Since implementation, patients have told their provider that they found the SCP’s list of signs and symptoms of cancer recurrence a helpful and reassuring resource.
Objective
This project is designed to be road map for other VA providers to follow by offering a review of the processes and resources that VACHS used and to share lessons learned.
The SCP is an important component of the survivorship standard of care. The CoC Standard 3.3 (version 2016) mandated that SCPs must be provided during an in-person meeting to an annually increasing percentage of patients initially diagnosed and treated for stage I, II, or III cancer in a given year—10% for those diagnosed and treated in 2015 and 25% for those diagnosed and treated in 2016 with increases in the required percentage each year thereafter. The mandated increase from 10% in 2015 to 25% in 2016 is significant and requires substantial resources to meet. Cancer centers seeking to achieve or maintain ACoS accreditation must fulfill this standard. 2
It is important to establish a robust SCP process proactively. The percentage of SCPs provided that is mandated by the CoC continues to rise annually and the rate of survivorship also is expected to rise. The January 2016 CoC update clarified the phase-in of this standard over 4 years: (1) 2015: Implement a process to provide treatment summaries to at least 10% of patients treated for stage I-III cancer; (2) By end of 2016: Provide treatment summaries to at least 25% of eligible patients; (3) By end of 2017: Provide treatment summaries to at least 50% of eligible patients; and (4) By end of 2018: Provide treatment summaries to at least 75% of eligible patients. 2
Background
In the fall of 2012, the project began with listening to survivors. The VA Survivorship Special Interest Group (SSIG) already had done significant work throughout the national VA system.3 The VACHS staff participated in monthly SSIG conference calls and reviewed the extensive resources created by its members, which is available through an internal VA website (Figure).