"This practical, evidence-based guide has been specifically designed for teachers in cancer and palliative care. It is completely up-to-date and covers the recent complex changes in cancer and palliative care delivery, offering a range of different, creative approaches. Ideal for training, the text includes highlighted key points, self help questions for reflection, and references where applicable. It provides invaluable guidance for all healthcare professionals with palliative care teaching responsibilities, including undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare educators and Macmillan lecturers."--PUBLISHER'S WEBSITE.

In the United States, approximately 14 million people have had cancer and more than 1.6 million new cases are diagnosed each year. However, more than a decade after the Institute of Medicine (IOM) first studied the quality of cancer care, the barriers to achieving excellent care for all cancer patients remain daunting. Care often is not patient-centered, many patients do not receive palliative care to manage their symptoms and side effects from treatment, and decisions about care often are not based on the latest scientific evidence. The cost of cancer care also is rising faster than many sectors of medicine--having increased to $125 billion in 2010 from $72 billion in 2004--and is projected to reach $173 billion by 2020. Rising costs are making cancer care less affordable for patients and their families and are creating disparities in patients' access to high-quality cancer care. There also are growing shortages of health professionals skilled in providing cancer care, and the number of adults age 65 and older--the group most susceptible to cancer--is expected to double by 2030, contributing to a 45 percent increase in the number of people developing cancer. The current care delivery system is poorly prepared to address the care needs of this population, which are complex due to altered physiology, functional and cognitive impairment, multiple coexisting diseases, increased side effects from treatment, and greater need for social support. Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis presents a conceptual framework for improving the quality of cancer care. This study proposes improvements to six interconnected components of care: (1) engaged patients; (2) an adequately staffed, trained, and coordinated workforce; (3) evidence-based care; (4) learning health care information technology (IT); (5) translation of evidence into clinical practice, quality measurement and performance improvement; and (6) accessible and affordable care. This report recommends changes across the board in these areas to improve the quality of care. Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis provides information for cancer care teams, patients and their families, researchers, quality metrics developers, and payers, as well as HHS, other federal agencies, and industry to reevaluate their current roles and responsibilities in cancer care and work together to develop a higher quality care delivery system. By working toward this shared goal, the cancer care community can improve the quality of life and outcomes for people facing a cancer diagnosis.

In our society's aggressive pursuit of cures for cancer, we have neglected symptom control and comfort care. Less than one percent of the National Cancer Institute's budget is spent on any aspect of palliative care research or education, despite the half million people who die of cancer each year and the larger number living with cancer and its symptoms. Improving Palliative Care for Cancer examines the barriersâ€"scientific, policy, and socialâ€"that keep those in need from getting good palliative care. It goes on to recommend public- and private-sector actions that would lead to the development of more effective palliative interventions; better information about currently used interventions; and greater knowledge about, and access to, palliative care for all those with cancer who would benefit from it.

The quality of cancer and palliative care is going through unprecedented change and development as a result of policy initiatives. The impact of these policies on education is unparalleled and it is essential that clinicians and educationalists are aware of the policy formation processes and educational strategies that meet the demands of these changing times. This book takes a holistic approach to patient care and draws on the diverse experience in hospices and highlights best practice to present a comprehensive and practical guide. However, it does more. New topics are given an educational perspective; those with limited educational experience are given sound advice; the implication of policy change is outlined. This is an important book and one which should be read by all clinicians, educators and managers responsible for improving services in cancer and palliative care.

Palliative care provides comprehensive support for severely affected patients with any life-limiting or life-threatening diagnosis. To do this effectively, it requires a disease-specific approach as the patients’ needs and clinical context will vary depending on the underlying diagnosis. Experts in the field of palliative care and oncology describe in detail the needs of patients with advanced cancer in comparison to those with non-cancer disease and also identify the requirements of patients with different cancer entities. Basic principles of symptom control are explained, with careful attention to therapy for pain associated with either the cancer or its treatment and to symptom-guided antineoplastic therapy. Complex therapeutic strategies for palliative cancer patients are highlighted that involve both cancer- and symptom-directed options and address a range of therapeutic aims. Issues relating to drug use in palliative cancer care are fully explored, and a separate section is devoted to care in the final phase. A range of organizational and policy issues are also discussed, and the book concludes by considering likely future developments in palliative care for cancer patients. Palliative Care in Oncology will be of particular interest to palliative care physicians who are interested in broadening the scope of their disease-specific knowledge, as well as to oncologists who wish to learn more about modern palliative care concepts relevant to their day-to-day work with cancer patients.

Education is key to developing a strong base for the future of palliative care, and this book provides a wide-ranging, global view of palliative care education. It offers theoretical and practical insights, along with specific suggestions for developing knowledge and skills for teaching.

This work includes Foreword by Nigel Sykes, Medical Director, St Christopher's Hospice, London. This practical, evidence-based guide has been specifically designed for teachers in cancer and palliative care. It is completely up-to-date and covers the recent complex changes in cancer and palliative care delivery, offering a range of different, creative approaches. Ideal for training, the text includes highlighted key points, self help questions for reflection, and references where applicable. It provides invaluable guidance for all healthcare professionals with palliative care teaching responsibilities, including undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare educators and Macmillan lecturers. '[This] book gives us a three-dimensional view of how to respond to the demands on cancer and palliative care education today, set particularly in a British context but, of course, capable of extrapolation to other settings. These three dimensions of innovation can be summarised as: What do you teach? How do you teach it? To whom do you teach it? Innovation in all three aspects simultaneously may be difficult to achieve, but all who have a responsibility for education are faced with the challenges of making their teaching more effective (and demonstrating that they have done so), keeping abreast of advancing knowledge and clinical practice, and of reaching out to groups of learners who hitherto have been neglected. Of significant help to anyone in this field whose concern is the delivery of effective and appropriate education.' - Nigel Sykes, in the Foreword.