Background:
Peter Mac is responsible for ensuring information is available to consumers at all points of their journey. To facilitate this, a new program, Cancer Information Scouts was introduced in January 2019. This program was established to support patients, carers and/or consumers with their resource and/or patient information needs.
Aims:
The primary aim was to understand the impacts of using a human based approach, Cancer Information Scouts, to support and assist consumers understand and source their written, cancer information needs.
Secondary aims were:
Methods:
125 Peter Mac, Specialist Clinic patients were surveyed, pre and post implementation of Cancer Information Scouts. The survey aimed to understand the importance a consumer placed on written cancer information and if navigation to written cancer information within Peter Mac was easy. Descriptive statistics were generated from this data.
Results:
Findings revealed the implementation of the Cancer Information Scouts increased patient confidence in navigating to their desired written information. Consumers placed varying importance on written information based on the stage of their cancer journey. Consumers found difficulty navigating to written information prior to the implementation of Cancer Information Scouts. Consumers found value in information that was relevant to their visit when located within close proximity. Overall patient information seeking behavior increased throughout this program.
Conclusions:
A human based approach to supporting and partnering in navigating written cancer information needs is important to consumers who are accessing written cancer information.