WV Cancer Survivors Network
This is a Cancer Survivorship Patient Navigation blog. It was created to bring WV cancer survivors together and advocate barriers of survivorship issues to help educate on long term effects of cancer treatments by getting patients resources.
Walking Miracles.Org
Waking Miracles.Org is now offically a 501 c3 non profit. Please check out our organization. www.walkingmiracles.org. Here is our specialty.
The primary objective of the Walking Miracles.Org is to increase patient education and to help reduce the mortality rate for cancer patients living in West Virginia by providing outreach services to get cancer detected early. Once cancer is detected our patients will be provided face-to-face services through “patient navigation” to include: • Financial (Insurance child care cost projections• Psychosocial issues• Education and practical life issues• Treatment options and effects• Transportation, child care arrangements• Long term survivorship issues• Other issues that may be specific to individuals, or regional concerns. Each navigator will focus on treatment and survivor issues that may be barriers, such as financial issues, clinical trials or practical everyday issues, as well as survivorship education on the long term effects.
WVPNN Conference
come join is for an exciting patient navigation conference sponsored by the mountains of hope cancer coalition december 25th john the 23rd center charleston west virginia 25314
NEW COMMISSION ON CANCER ACCREDITATION STANDARDS GAIN STRONG SUPPORT FROM FOUR NATIONAL CANCER ADVOCACY ORGANIZATIONS
NEW COMMISSION ON CANCER ACCREDITATION STANDARDS GAIN STRONG SUPPORT FROM FOUR NATIONAL CANCER ADVOCACY ORGANIZATIONS
September 6, 2011
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August 31, 2011 - CHICAGO - A patient-centered approach is at the forefront of new accreditation standards for hospital cancer programs released today by the Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). "The changing landscape of cancer patient care motivated us to develop new standards to directly address patient concerns," said Stephen Edge, MD, FACS, Chair of the Commission on Cancer. "These standards enhance the focus of care so that it is much more than a defined structure of clinical treatment."
The new CoC standards ensure that key elements of quality cancer care are provided to every person with cancer treated in a CoC-accredited facility throughout their diagnosis and treatment process, as well as psychosocial support, care for cancer-related pain, palliative care, and hospice care.
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Four national cancer patient support/advocacy organizations worked closely with the CoC to develop the new patient-centered standards to better enable cancer patients to work with their interdisciplinary cancer treatment team and become partners in their own care. Family members are also welcome participants in the process.
These advocacy group contributions are reflected in three key areas of patient-centered treatment and include:
A patient navigation process to address health care disparities and barriers to care.
Screening patients for psychosocial distress.
A survivorship care plan that documents care received and seeks to improve cancer survivors' quality of life.
The four patient support/advocacy organizations that are members of the CoC and provided key input into the development of these standards are: the American Cancer Society, the Cancer Support Community, the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, and LIVESTRONG. These groups also contributed input on how patient-centered standards could be implemented into the framework of CoC-accredited cancer programs.
Additionally, new patient-centered standards have been developed that require accredited programs to offer patients palliative care (either on site or by referral) and genetic services (either on site or by referral by a qualified genetics professional)
The CoC standards require a coordination of care among many medical disciplines including physicians ranging from primary care providers to specialists in all oncology disciplines. Clinical and allied-health professionals including nursing, social work, genetics, nutrition, rehabilitation, and others also help to ensure that patient needs are addressed. This complex system of care can be a challenge for many cancer patients and their families, prompting the CoC to work with the American Cancer Society to develop a patient navigation Specifically, the CoC will require that its accredited cancer programs perform an assessment of their community and develop programs to address barriers to access and cancer care.
"Integrating this extra layer of support alongside curative treatment is essential to reduce suffering and improve quality of life for cancer patients and their loved ones," said Otis W. Brawley, MD, chief medical officer, American Cancer Society. "Cancer patients who seek care at CoC-accredited facilities will benefit from interdisciplinary teams who focus on relieving symptoms, pain, and stress, and can help coordinate communication among the patients, their families, and their medical team."
Another component of the "extra layer of support" Dr. Brawley mentions is the patient's psychosocial well-being. The new CoC standard that requires all patients be screened for distress was developed in consultation with the Cancer Support Community (CSC), a group that "has long been a champion of distress screening at critical stages along a person's cancer journey," explains Kim Thiboldeaux, CSC president and CEO. "We are particularly pleased with the Commission's adoption of a standard requiring that all cancer patients be screened for distress," she said. "We will support implementation of this new standard by continuing to make a wide array of support services available through our network of more than 50 professionally led community-based centers as well as online, so that no one has to face cancer alone."
Fortunately, early screening and improved local therapy and systemic treatments are producing more cancer survivors. The decline in cancer mortality rates for many types of the disease--while cause for optimism--promoted the CoC to seek input on the development of a cancer survivorship standard to address quality-of-life issues for the growing ranks of cancer survivors. "The integration of these new standards at all Commission on Cancer facilities is an important step towards addressing the needs of survivors, a population that is growing now that more people are living with cancer," said Doug Ulman, LIVESTRONG president and CEO. "We are proud to be part of this national effort."
"We commend the Commission for adoption of the new standard calling for cancer survivors to receive a comprehensive care summary and survivorship care plan upon comple tion of their cancer treatment," said Ellen L. Stovall, Senior Health Policy Advisor, National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. "Incorporation of this new standard into the Commission's accreditation process is an important milestone in implementation of a key recommendation of the Institute of Medicine's 2005 consensus report From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition," explained Ms. Stovall who also served as Vice-Chair, IOM Committee on Cancer Survivorship: Improving Care and Quality of Life.
Promoting the highest level of quality cancer care has always been the foundation for Commission on Cancer standards, and the new 2012 standards contain new quality requirements. Of particular note is a new standard that requires CoC programs to reach specific performance levels on measuring quality for treating patients with breast, colon, and rectal cancers. These "quality measures" are defined by the Commission on Cancer and endorsed by the National Quality Forum. The CoC, through its National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), has the only system available in the United States to apply these quality measures and feed data back to its programs to evaluate how they are performing. This system in turn allows them to develop a cancer care program that renders care along a continuum of continuous quality improvement.
"The 2012 CoC standards challenge cancer programs to enhance the care they provide by addressing patient-centered needs and measuring the quality of the care they deliver against national standards. Both areas are critical components of quality cancer care," explained Daniel P. McKellar, MD, FACS, who chairs the CoC's Accreditation Committee.
The Commission on Cancer revises its standards every five to seven years. While the new patient-centered approach is now a required part of the standards, "we recognize that cancer programs may not immediately have all of these elements in place, and are allowing them to be phased in," said Dr. Edge. "However, we do expect phase-in efforts to move along quickly, and CoC programs will derive great benefit from the support of the four leading national cancer advocacy groups that have been such valuable contributors to our efforts in promoting patient-centered cancer care."
The Walking Miracle.
I want to thank Deion Sanders for being real in his hall of fame speech. I overcame my cancer twice as a child because of God’s Grace and Mercy. I made a promise to him for keeping me alive that I would help others through this. I can't give up on that because he did not give up on me. For those who ridiculed me and mocked me because of my illness as a child God loves me and is proud of me, I don't need you to succeed.
I want to thank Deion Sanders for focusing on how people treated him in the hall of fame speech. So for all the people who never believed in me I made a promise to God for keeping me alive, that I would succeed. I had to continue to fight because God and my family expected me too. I am willing to do and give of myself and most of you selfishly will not. Walking Miracles.Org will be accomplished because God has put that vision in my heart and with him and those who may find my story inspiring enough to ask me more about it and with God's financial blessing through those who serve him and may want to help me, I will accomplish my dream. I want this blessing not for my needs, but like Deion stated its necessary to help others. To whom much is given much is required, I am ready for this.
For all of those who have used my ideas and turned me down for jobs, I made a promise to God and myself that I would succeed. To all the teachers and people who said I would never accomplish much, I paid the price most of you would have given up on. I have overcome odds that are impossible and most of you would have quit and taken your ball home. To the naysayers who accused me of being simple minded in my approach to helping cancer patients and their families, remember I have more research, time, expertise, and knowledge about this disease than any educated man or Dr. out there unless like me you have been through cancer yourself. See the implementation of what you have studied and the outcome of your treatment and research ideas have to come from patients like me, I learned firsthand the effects of the treatment long after I was done. Did you? Finally, for those who never gave me the chance or thought my credentials were not good enough to prove myself in your hospitals or clinics, God will and in the end because of his promise's and his word, I will win in the end!!! God bless!!!
Radio Interview
I was interviewed on 58Live on WCHS radio yesterday to talk about the work of livestrong.org and walkingmiracles.org. I wanted to reach out to the cancer survivors and newly diagnosed patients and families in WV and get them involved.
Thanks Jeff Moss and WV Radio Corporation
Livestrong Cancer Survivorship Survey
Livestrong Cancer Survivorship Survey
We have identified three key steps that we believe can help to address the gaps between what cancer survivors are experiencing and what we are able to provide. We must…
Connect people to the resources they need.
When care exists for—and helps to ameliorate—post-treatment survivors’ concerns, connecting more survivors to this care is an actionable means to improve post-treatment cancer survivorship.
Identify and disseminate the essential elements of survivorship care delivery that can help to ensure cancer survivors’ needs are met.
To address the multifaceted experience of surviving cancer, we need systems of care that incorporate a variety of disciplines which are positioned to address the physical, emotional and practical concerns of post-treatment survivors. The cancer community should identify the minimal requirements for survivorship care that address the most common physical, emotional and practical concerns experienced by survivors and leverage resources, such as Health IT platforms, to coordinate good care.
Conduct continued surveillance of the concerns of cancer survivors and disseminate research to better understand the experience of post-treatment survivorship.
Surveillance at the national and local levels should occur on a regular basis to measure the needs of and receipt of care by cancer survivors, including survivors in the post-treatment period. Continued research and attention to this unique piece of the cancer continuum—life after treatment—is vital as the number of survivors increases steadily.
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