A Physician-Led and Learning-Driven Approach to Regional Development of 23 Cancer Pathways

Journal article, 2012

Sweden has one of the best cancer care systems in the world when it comes to survival. However, prognoses shows that by 2030 the number of men with cancer will increase by almost 130% compared to today – the corresponding increase for women is around 70%. Approximately half of this increase can be explained by population changes, i.e. population size and age structure. Due to this future challenge, a national cancer strategy has been created. We will present some strategies that the Regional Cancer Centre West is working on to face the future challenge. A central part of this work is to create patient-focused, coherent regional care pathways for patients with malignant diseases. For this purpose, 30 experienced senior physicians, specialized in different tumour diseases, have been appointed as regional process (pathway) owners. Together, they share a regional responsibility for 23 cancer pathways, and nine support processes.