gms | German Medical Science

The project "Case Management: Psychooncology" pursues the implementation of psychooncological care during the cancer treatment in hospitals. One aim is to proof the "appropriate technical quality", the clinical utility and the economic outcome of the day-to-day psychosocial practicein cancer care. The responsible agencies for the project are the administrative leaders of seven hospitals of the region Westphalia in NRW. Other Project partners are the „Ministerium für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales des Landes NRW“, the „AOK-WL“, the „Krankenhausgesellschaft NRW“, two university institutes and the „Carina Stiftung (= head of the project and financing). The project is based on a psychosocial care concept, with treatment pathways, a computer-supported documentationsystem and a quality assurance system. It considers published evidence and guidelines for psychosocial care of cancer patients, public health policy defaults and the clinical experiences ofpsychooncological care ("Herford Model"). To assure a high quality of psychosocial care in an acute treatment setting the effective and efficient identification and assignment of patients in need of treatment is indispensable. For this valid psychometric tools with sufficient sensitivity and specificity in combination with checklists are recommended. The checklists` aim is to identify the specific psychosocial problems/needs. The psychometric tools make sure a valid identification of patients at high risk for emotional distress. The identification of patients must be closely connected with need-oriented psychosocial interventions. Basic psychosocial support at the beginning of cancer treatment is necessary for all newly diagnosed patients. Concrete psychosocial interventions should be offered to patients with identified psychosocial problems/needs. Patients at high risk for moderate or severe emotional distress should be reffered to counseling services or psychotherapeutical interventions after an additional psychooncological anamnesis carried out by an experienced mental health professional. During the course of treatment the cancer care team accomplishes the continuous distress monitoring by the use of a checklist. The checklist also allow the health-care professionals to pass on patients to concrete psychosocial interventions. The repeatedly use of these tools can serve both the evaluation of the effects of psychooncological care as well as the referral of patients to psychosocial aftercare. The “information-based patient care” is not only required for the proof of an evidence-supported and guideline-based psychooncological care in an "appropriate technical quality" but also for a benchmarking systemand the continuous quality improvement in psychooncology. The lecture represents the concept and the recording method of the current project.