A Workshop Promoting and Spreading Team Medical Care and Regional Collaboration for Cancer Patients

Abstract

Background: In 2011 Tohoku University Hospital (TUH) organized a medical collaboration team with local clinics and pharmacies to promote team medical care for cancer patients. In 2012 we tried further to promote and spread the knowledge of team medical care we got from activities of previous year to the regional medical professionals. Methods:We planned and hosted workshops to promote and spread team medical care and regional collaboration in three cities in Miyagi prefecture, Sendai, Ishinomaki, and Osaki. In advance we sent participants a medical history of a model patient who had physical and social difficulties. Participants filled out a before-participation survey of their opinion about the patient and their idea about other professionals. The workshop we hosted consisted of three parts. The first section was a series of lectures about medical care for cancer patients from doctors, pharmacists, nurses and medical social workers in TUH. The second part was a panel discussion led by the local medical oncology team.We split the participants into small groups consisting of different professionals, and had them discuss the model patient as a team in the final section. At the end of the workshop, the participants filled out the same questionnaire they had answered beforehand and we compared the two answers. Results: In all three cities the participants altered their opinion about the model patient. The workshop provided them an opportunity to learn team medical care. Through the workshop they were able to find solutions to problems they had thought impossible to solve individually. Conclusions: The workshops proved to be an efficient educational opportunity for the local medical professionals. They practiced team medical care and medical collaboration in the workshops.We are going to report the outline of our trial in this meeting as an oral presentation, and we will also give details about the design and outcomes from the workshops in the poster session.