Nurse led clinics provide a safe and effective model of care that’s proven to have equivocal outcomes when compared to medical led clinics in terms of symptom management, quality of life, patient satisfaction and self-management.
The specialist cancer nursing team at Gold Coast University Hospital have developed and implemented nurse led clinics across various tumour streams and treatment pathways. The clinics provide biopsychosocial assessments, monitoring of patient’s condition, self-management strategies, education, and referrals to allied health and community support services as required. In collaboration with multiple key stakeholders, specific nurse led clinic guidelines have been developed to ensure a structure and framework exist. These guidelines provide information relating to specific eligibility criteria, referral processes, clinic processes, escalation criteria and evaluation.
This presentation will discuss the challenges and benefits of implementing nurse led clinics in a real world clinical setting and factors that need to be considered in the evaluation of these clinics in the future.