Hil Moss: Why survivorship care matters

Hil Moss, Co-Founder and CEO of OncoveryCare, shared on LinkedIn:

“If you’ve ever wanted a visual for why survivorship care matters—and why it is a blinking-red, have-to-crack-this-now issue—I’ve got one for you this morning.

It’s been a while since a comprehensive study of the US prevalence of survivors was released, so my team was excited to dig into the new report released a few days ago by the NCI. As you can see from the image below, the population of US cancer survivors is growing rapidly—and 70% of survivors today, myself included, are 5+ years out from a cancer diagnosis (wow!).

This is a wildly different reality from even ten years ago. And the study highlights the challenges of late effects of treatment, citing ‘fatigue, frailty, cognitive impairment, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, ovarian failure or infertility, psychological distress, cardiotoxicity, and second cancers’ specifically.

What does this mean? Like so much in healthcare, this is a workforce challenge.

Between 2020 and 2030, the highest increase in medical oncology use is ‘projected to occur among cancer survivors who survive 10 or more years following diagnosis.’ We already have a strapped oncology workforce with the rapid increase in new diagnoses—this just isn’t sustainable. And the challenges listed above don’t need to fall entirely on oncologists.

What about PCPs? Well, according to the study, ‘primary care providers’ lack of exposure to cancer treatment algorithms and limited involvement in care during the active treatment phase’—as well as fragmented data and records—make it difficult for them to pick-up the pieces of post-treatment side effects and needs.

Sounds to me like we need a radical new approach to cancer survivorship care …. and we need it now.”

Source: Hil Moss/LinkedIn