Shared decision making in older surgical cancer patients. Changing the trajectory by involving geriatricians and nurses
The fourth webinar of 2021 was held on Tuesday, May 25 and discussed “Shared decision making in older surgical cancer patients. Changing the trajectory by involving geriatricians and nurses” with Drs. Hanneke van der Wal and Suzanne Festen.
In this webinar, Drs. van der Wal and Festers reviewed the care pathway they developed for older cancer patients in need for surgery for their solid malignancy. For this, we have trained nurses to perform a Geriatric Assessment (GA) and an assessment on patients’ preferences on treatment recommendations, and this information is shared by the nurse in a multidisciplinary team discussion. Results showed that this information, together with the presence of a geriatrician in het MDT, leads in 27% to a different treatment recommendation for our older surgical cancer patient.
Speakers
Suzanne Festen
Dr. Suzanne Festen is an internist geriatrician, working in the UMCG, an academic hospital in the north of the Netherlands. Her clinical work and research focus on multidisciplinary decision-making and onco-geriatrics.
Hanneke van der Wal- Huisman
Dr. Hanneke van der Wal- Huisman is a nurse and nurse scientist within the Surgical department of the University Medical Center in Groningen (UMCG). She is currently working in the research group focuses on care for older surgical patients with regard to preoperative decision making and optimizing postoperative outcome trough non-pharmaceutical interventions.