Follow-up care of cancer survivors: optimizing survivor and health system outcomes

The number of cancer survivors has grown due to increases in cancer incidence (that is, the number of people being diagnosed with cancer) and improvements in cancer survival. Today, more than 1 million Canadians are cancer survivors. After finishing treatment, survivors have needs to the same degree as they do when on treatment. Many strategies have been tested to improve survivors' care after treatment (also known as the follow-up care period), but most have been unsuccessful. This might be because researchers test strategies without allowing them to fit with the real-world environment. The goals of this research program are to produce high-quality, relevant knowledge to allow us to design better strategies to improve survivors' follow-up care and to test a strategy based on this knowledge. The focus will be on survivors who have completed their cancer treatment (i.e., surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiotherapy) and are now cancer-free. Follow-up care is delivered during this period. The research program will involve 4 studies. The first three studies will be carried out to gather information about: (1) what stakeholders' think are the important outcomes during follow-up care; (2) the various strategies that have been used to try to improve outcomes during follow-up care, and how these strategies can be applied in the real world to maximize their benefit; and (3) stakeholders' views on the factors that hinder or help the delivery of follow-up care. Together, this information will inform the development of study 4 - specifically, the design and testing of a follow-up care strategy to improve the outcomes important to stakeholders. Survivors and other key stakeholders will be involved in the entire research process to make sure the studies and findings are relevant to them. This program will help us design cancer survivorship care that is more responsive to stakeholders needs' and more likely to be taken up in practice and policy.