Implementing the Commission on Cancer Standards for Survivorship Care Plans

The number of adult cancer survivors in the United States has exceeded 13 million and continues to rise, yet care for these survivors continues to be poorly coordinated and their needs remain inadequately addressed. As one solution to this growing problem, the Institute of Medicine in 2006 recommended the delivery of a survivorship care plan (SCP) to each patient completing active treatment. The American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer subsequently published its Program Standard 3.3, requiring accredited programs to implement treatment summaries and SCPs by 2015, to help improve communication, quality, and coordination of care for cancer survivors. As practices and cancer centers around the country have undertaken SCP implementation efforts, myriad barriers to their preparation and delivery have emerged, with time and human resource burden top among these, in addition to a lack of proven outcomes. Fortunately, a growing number of publications document practical and feasible delivery models, and an increasingly robust body of research on stakeholder preferences is available to focus SCP implementation efforts.