Survivorship care planning

Do nurses participate in survivorship care planning? — Ruth C. Gholz, RN, MS, AOCN, and colleagues at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center

Survivorship care planning is a coordinated posttreatment plan between the cancer survivor and the oncology treatment team, primary care physician, and other health care professionals. Oncology nurses should most definitely be a part of the process. With the ever increasing survival of persons with cancer, survivorship care planning has become a crucial part of cancer care and formalized care plan programs are available. One particularly innovative program is known as OncoLife, a Web-based program developed at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia that can be utilized by both nurses and physicians to design cancer survivorship care plans. — Donald Fleming, MD