Ensuring Quality Cancer Care Through the Oncology Workforce: Sustaining Care in the 21st Century: Workshop Summary

摘要

There is currently a crisis in cancer care that experts predict will worsen in the near future due to a rapidly growing population of Americans requiring cancer care combined with an aging/retiring oncology workforce, and inadequate numbers of replacement workers. By 2020, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) predicts a 48 percent increase in cancer incidence and an 81 percent increase in people living with or surviving cancer (Erikson et al., 2007). For the same time period, ASCO predicts only a 14 percent increase in the number of practicing oncologists. Expected shortages in other health care workers who are involved in cancer care, including nurses, physician assistants, laboratory and radiology technicians, social workers, radiologists, surgeons, pharmacists, public health workers, and cancer registrars, also will affect both the quantity and the quality of cancer care in the 21st century. In addition, achieving improvements in any aspect of cancer care--including research, clinical trials, health disparities, access to care, patient navigation, survivorship, palliative care, etc.--will be difficult if not impossible without a sufficiently staffed general health care workforce.