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Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point
Background: To improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care, cancer patients can obtain a second medical opinion on their treatment. Validation of the diagnostic procedure (e.g., imaging), diagnosis, and treatment recommendation allows oncological therapy to be applied in a more targeted way,...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10647700/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37958196 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13213300 |
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author | Schulmeyer, Carla E. Beckmann, Matthias W. Fasching, Peter A. Häberle, Lothar Golcher, Henriette Kunath, Frank Wullich, Bernd Emons, Julius |
author_facet | Schulmeyer, Carla E. Beckmann, Matthias W. Fasching, Peter A. Häberle, Lothar Golcher, Henriette Kunath, Frank Wullich, Bernd Emons, Julius |
author_sort | Schulmeyer, Carla E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Background: To improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care, cancer patients can obtain a second medical opinion on their treatment. Validation of the diagnostic procedure (e.g., imaging), diagnosis, and treatment recommendation allows oncological therapy to be applied in a more targeted way, optimizing interdisciplinary care. This study describes patients who received second opinions at the Comprehensive Cancer Center for Erlangen–Nuremberg metropolitan area in Germany over a 6-year period, as well as the amount of time spent on second-opinion counseling. Methods: This prospective, descriptive, single-center observational study included 584 male and female cancer patients undergoing gynecological, urologic, or general surgery who sought a second medical opinion. The extent to which the first opinion complied with standard guidelines was assessed solely descriptively. Results: The first opinion was in accordance with the guidelines and complete in 54.5% of the patients, and guideline compliant but incomplete in 13.2%. The median time taken to form a second opinion was 225 min, and the cancer information service was contacted by patients an average of eight times. Conclusions: The initial opinion was guideline compliant and complete in every second case. Without a second opinion, the remaining patients would have been denied a guideline-compliant treatment recommendation. Obtaining a second opinion gives patients an opportunity to receive a guideline-compliant treatment recommendation and enables them to benefit from newer, individualized therapeutic approaches in clinical trials. Establishing patient-initiated second opinions via central contact points appears to be a feasible option for improving guideline compliance. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10647700 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106477002023-10-25 Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point Schulmeyer, Carla E. Beckmann, Matthias W. Fasching, Peter A. Häberle, Lothar Golcher, Henriette Kunath, Frank Wullich, Bernd Emons, Julius Diagnostics (Basel) Article Background: To improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of care, cancer patients can obtain a second medical opinion on their treatment. Validation of the diagnostic procedure (e.g., imaging), diagnosis, and treatment recommendation allows oncological therapy to be applied in a more targeted way, optimizing interdisciplinary care. This study describes patients who received second opinions at the Comprehensive Cancer Center for Erlangen–Nuremberg metropolitan area in Germany over a 6-year period, as well as the amount of time spent on second-opinion counseling. Methods: This prospective, descriptive, single-center observational study included 584 male and female cancer patients undergoing gynecological, urologic, or general surgery who sought a second medical opinion. The extent to which the first opinion complied with standard guidelines was assessed solely descriptively. Results: The first opinion was in accordance with the guidelines and complete in 54.5% of the patients, and guideline compliant but incomplete in 13.2%. The median time taken to form a second opinion was 225 min, and the cancer information service was contacted by patients an average of eight times. Conclusions: The initial opinion was guideline compliant and complete in every second case. Without a second opinion, the remaining patients would have been denied a guideline-compliant treatment recommendation. Obtaining a second opinion gives patients an opportunity to receive a guideline-compliant treatment recommendation and enables them to benefit from newer, individualized therapeutic approaches in clinical trials. Establishing patient-initiated second opinions via central contact points appears to be a feasible option for improving guideline compliance. MDPI 2023-10-25 /pmc/articles/PMC10647700/ /pubmed/37958196 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13213300 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Schulmeyer, Carla E. Beckmann, Matthias W. Fasching, Peter A. Häberle, Lothar Golcher, Henriette Kunath, Frank Wullich, Bernd Emons, Julius Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point |
title | Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point |
title_full | Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point |
title_fullStr | Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point |
title_full_unstemmed | Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point |
title_short | Improving the Quality of Care for Cancer Patients through Oncological Second Opinions in a Comprehensive Cancer Center: Feasibility of Patient-Initiated Second Opinions through a Health-Insurance Service Point |
title_sort | improving the quality of care for cancer patients through oncological second opinions in a comprehensive cancer center: feasibility of patient-initiated second opinions through a health-insurance service point |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10647700/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37958196 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics13213300 |
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