Case management used to optimize cancer care pathways: A systematic review

BACKGROUND: Reports of inadequate cancer patient care have given rise to various interventions to support cancer care pathways which, overall, seem poorly studied. Case management (CM) is one method that may support a cost-effective, high-quality patient-centred treatment and care. The purpose of this article was to summarise intervention characteristics, outcomes of interest, results, and validity components of the published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining CM as a method for optimizing cancer care pathways. METHODS: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL and The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were systematically searched for RCTs published all years up to August 2008. Identified papers were included if they passed the following standards. Inclusion criteria: 1) The intervention should meet the criteria for CM which includes multidisciplinary collaboration, care co-ordination, and it should include in-person meetings between patient and the case manager aimed at supporting, informing and educating the patient. 2) The intervention should focus on cancer patient care. 3) The intervention should aim to improve subjective or objective quality outcomes, and effects should be reported in the paper. Exclusion criteria: Studies centred on cancer screening or palliative cancer care. Data extraction was conducted in order to obtain a descriptive overview of intervention characteristics, outcomes of interest and findings. Elements of CONSORT guidelines and checklists were used to assess aspects of study validity. RESULTS: The searches identified 654 unique papers, of which 25 were retrieved for scrutiny. Seven papers were finally included. Intervention characteristics, outcomes studied, findings and methodological aspects were all very diverse. CONCLUSION: Due to the scarcity of papers included (seven), significant heterogeneity in target group, intervention setting, outcomes measured and methodologies applied, no conclusions can be drawn about the effect of CM on cancer patient care. It is a major challenge that CM shrouds in a "black box", which means that it is difficult to determine which aspect(s) of interventions contribute to overall effects. More trials on rigorously developed CM interventions (opening up the "black box") are needed as is the re-testing of interventions and outcomes studied in various settings.