Annual Report 2018
Supportive Care Center
Koichi Goto, Sadamoto Zenda, Uchiyama Yumiko, Hatoe Sakamoto, Yoko Iida, Hideo Uesugi, Tokiko Suzuki, Erika Sekine, Chiharu Tanaka, Kumi Nakamura, Aki Uchida, Anna Ono, Ayano Shinmei, Emiko Sugisaka, Miwa Yamauchi, Yuko Teshigawara, Tomomi Kamitani
Introduction
The Supportive Care Center was established as an organization to provide, in addition to conventional consultation support, positive and comprehensive support from a variety of professional occupations for actual or potential physical, mental, and social problems that cancer patients and their families have to confront. Our main activities are the establishment of a continuous support system for patients and their families, the enhancement of a home care support system, and the promotion of community cooperation for establishing early palliative care.
Research activities
1. Consultation support/community medicine cooperation
In 2018, we received 5,693 (down 9.5% over 2017) new consultations. Among them, 4,609 (81.0%) were from patients who had received medical treatment in our hospital, or their families, and 1,084 (19.0%) were from patients who had received medical treatment at other medical institutions, or their families (Table 1).
Table 1. Details of the consultation support provided in 2016
We provided educational services for cancer patients such as oral care programs, skin and nail care programs, and physical rehabilitation programs to improve the quality of life of patients under treatment. In 2018, 111 events were held and 1,381 people participated.
To perform enlarged surgical operations and endoscopic examinations, the new building, which is named NEXT, was opened from May 2017 in our hospital. Therefore, to acquire more new patients, we had many conferences held in communities in order to build face-to-face relationships between the physicians of our hospital and local physicians. In 2018, we planned 6 meetings and a total of 734 medical co-workers from our neighborhood hospitals participated in them.
2. Continuous nursing support
For outpatients, we provide continuous nursing support. In 2018, we provided continuous support and consultation services to approximately 994 patients.
In order to promote self-care by inpatients and/or their families, as well as to secure appropriate social resources, we provide medical and social support with a view to home care even in the early timing of hospitalization. We carried out a screening program which can detect the patients who need social support and provided them with the appropriate support.
In order to sustain seamless medical and social support, we strengthen the cooperation with home-visit nursing stations to deal with problems faced by home care patients and/or their families, mainly related to medical management. In 2018, we carried out interventions with approximately 930 phone-call consultations.
3. Prevention program to improve job turnover rate for cancer patients
We performed a prospective observational study to establish a prevention program to improve job turnover rate for cancer patients. Based on the results of this study, we have established a prevention program using "Helpful checklists to balance cancer treatment and work". We conducted a prospective randomized study using our new program to show its preventive effect for cancer patients.