JULIE McCROSSIN AM Patient Advocate, Cancer Survivor and Grandmother
“My experience of treatment and recovery from stage four oropharyngeal cancer taught me to focus on the experience of my clinical team.”
The Courage to Measure Outcomes: A Patient’s Perspective
The focus on value-based health care offers a new
My life-saving treatment of 33 sessions of radiation
opportunity to give patients and their families a
therapy, bolted down to the bed of my radiation
voice so we can achieve real-time improvements in
machine by a rigid thermoplastic mask, plus weekly
treatment in partnership with our multidisciplinary
chemotherapy, was brutal. This is not a complaint.
team. At the same time, we can collect large
It is simply a fact. The side effects, short and long
data sets to enable us to do systemic, structural
term, are tough.
improvements to care over time. This approach
I came to understand that members of
gives an active role to patients and their families.
compassionate, multidisciplinary cancer teams are
It is, quite simply, a win-win-win situation.
almost frightened to truly comprehend the impact
It takes courage to measure results, including
on patients and families of the treatment regime
finding out what your patients and families really
because they are not sure they can address the
think. My experience of treatment and recovery
unmet need. Cancer teams are working so hard
from stage four oropharyngeal cancer taught me
to deliver the basic curative care, or care to
to focus on the experience of my clinical team.
prolong life, it would be too overwhelming to
I needed to understand their perspective and
collect and interrogate the nature and scope of
challenges if I were to work with them to improve
our unmet needs.
the experience and results for head and neck cancer patients like myself.
This is especially the case with the impact on families. My cancer treatment was all outpatient >
The Health Advocate • AUGUST 2021
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