The application of a patient centred service design approach to improve patients experience of breast cancer care

Summary This project aims to develop understanding of how people receiving care and their care providers can collaborate in a shared goal-setting and decision-making process to align care to outcome goals and care preferences, with a focus on improving patients experience of breast cancer care.

Project Details

This project is based in Person-Centred Value-based HealthCare and will form an important aspect of the research priorities of the Global Centre for PCVBHC. PCVBHC is an important approach to health care which aims to improve the outcomes that matter to people.

The research aims to develop understanding of how people receiving care and their clinicians can collaborate in a shared goal-setting and decision-making process to align care to outcome goals and care preferences. Methodology will include a literature review complemented by involvement with an international, multi-stakeholder Community of Experts, thereby strengthening knowledge around Person-Centred Value-Based Health Care and providing recommendations on how to implement the approach

This project will also develop the visualisation of optimal pathways in breast cancer care and identify where along the pathways consultation with patients is either important or critical in order to foster shared decision making and the best possible outcomes. This will be achieved by patient record review, questionnaires, interviewing stakeholders and focus group discussions.

The project will map the complexity of the breast cancer care path within Melbourne Health and highlight how shared decision making is influenced by the pathways present in each institution and the decision making moments. Details of information provision, role and task delegation and collaboration will be collected.

This should provide a strong visualisation of the care pathway from the perspective of both patients and care providers and should enable advances in the patient’s perception of treatments and also improvements in care and policy developments.