Care coordination for cancer cost-effective

Monday, September 2nd, 2013 | TONY BLAKELY | 2 Comments

Professor Tony Blakely

Dedicated cancer care coordinators – a clinical nurse specialist charged with navigating patients through their care – appears to be cost effective, at least for stage III colon cancer.

The Government’s 2012 Budget included $33 million for “better and faster” services for cancer patients, of which $16 million dollars was for care coordination nurses.  This all seems sensible, in that the immediate and net cost of cancer care coordinators may be negligible – putting in place coordinators frees up other staff to do other things as we show in a publication last week in the NZ Medical Journal. Continue reading