The first “On Connect: territorial oncology of the province of Ferrara” project for the proximity management of oncological treatments. The Project, coordinated by prof. Antonio Frassoldati (Director of the intercompany Oncohematology Department) it fits within the broader horizon of the “Emilia-Romagna oncology and haemato-oncology network”.
An important collaboration which sees the involvement of the Primary Care Department and Family and Community Nurses.
“The regional oncology network – explains the professor. Frassoldati (in the photo) – provides for the development of a “proximity” oncologyin which i treatments are brought as close as possible to the patient’s residence. In our province this condition has long been favored by the presence of oncology facilities distributed throughout the area. The Oncology Day Services of the Cento, Lagosanto and Argenta hospitals operate in close connection with the Clinical Oncology reference center of the Cona hospital and allow oncology treatments to be provided to patients residing in the nearby areas, also representing the point access for patients with new diagnoses. The “On Connect” project is aimed at giving further development to local oncology, extending oncological treatments – in compliance with quality and safety principles – also at the first level facilities of the Oncology Network (Community Homes and Hospitals), up to the patients’ homes. A project that plans to integrate other important professional figures, and in particular the Family and Community Nurse, who will have the task of developing proactive monitoring of treatments to encourage maximum adherence to treatments and improve the management of possible secondary effects, also with the aid of telemedicine tools. Looking ahead, with the participation of the General Practitioner in the project, therapies will be able to increasingly come closer to the patient’s home, reducing the inconveniences associated with the need to access the hospital. For each patient it will therefore be possible to define not only the appropriate therapy, but also the location in which the therapy can be best performed”.
The prerequisites for the development of a territorial oncology, in close collaboration with the Department of Primary Care, are in fact based on the awareness that the long history of oncological disease alternates acute moments, which must necessarily be managed within the hospital, to long phases of chronicity, in which priority must be given to a context of daily life, with low intensity of care. The availability of very effective drugs, which can be administered orally, and other intravenous ones with low complexity of execution, further makes a flexible organization of care possible, capable of combining the needs of the patient with those of therapy management.
To date, the treatment paths at the Community House have been modulated in a limited number of patients, but it is expected that the number will increase rapidly as the conditions useful for this treatment regime are identified in each patient.