Annual Report 2019
Supportive Care Center
Koichi Goto, Sadamoto Zenda, Miki Kondo, Hatoe Sakamoto, Yoko Iida, Yuya Inoue, Tokiko Suzuki, Erika Sekine, Kumi Nakamura, Chieka Yoshida, Emiko Sugisaka, Miwa Yamauchi, Yuko Teshigawara, Tomomi Sasagawa
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 fields 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 2019, we received 5,894 (down 3.5% over 2018) new consultations. Among them, 4,928 (83.2%) were from patients who had received medical treatment in our hospital, or their families, and 996 (16.8%) were from patients who had received medical treatment at other medical institutions, or their families (Table 1).
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 2019, 87 events were held and 275 people participated.
To perform enlarged surgical operations and endoscopic examinations, the new building, which is named NEXT, opened in May 2017 in our hospital. Therefore, to acquire more new patients, we held many conferences in local communities in order to build face-to-face relationships between the physicians of our hospital and local physicians. In 2019, we planned 5 meetings and a total of 722 medical co-workers from our neighborhood hospitals participated in hem.
Table 1. Details of the consultation support provided in 2019
2. Continuous nursing support
For outpatients, we provide continuous nursing support. In 2019, we provided continuous support and consultation services to approximately 724 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 stage 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 2019, we carried out interventions with 104 phone-call consultations.
3. Prevention program to improve the job turnover rate for cancer patients
We performed a prospective observational study to establish a prevention program to improve the job turnover rate for cancer patients. Based on the results of this study, we have established a prevention program using “Helpful check lists to balance cancer treatment and work”. We conducted a prospective randomized study using our new program to show its preventive effect for cancer patients.