Developing a Community Standard of Care for Individuals Diagnosed with Breast Cancer Patients Across Oregon

ABSTRACT

Early in the pandemic, cancer centers across the nation and Oregon canceled their cancer support programs as non-essential medical care. Breast cancer patients were forced to look elsewhere for essential assistance and community support to move along their cancer journeys. Pink Lemonade Project (PLP), a Vancouver, WA based community based nonprofit, helped fill the gaps and expanded its local support for breast cancer patients. A virtual format allowed PLP to serve more individuals with our psychological, emotional and financial support programs. Next, PLP convened an informal coalition of all the local breast cancer support organizations including those that offer breast cancer support programs, community including dragon boating and rowing, and others that serve broader communities and more people of color. Then, as Komen National announced its restructuring, and closed the Oregon-Southwest Washington affiliate in Spring 2021, Pink Lemonade Project stepped up again to maintain two locally-grown Komen programs that met critical community need-the MBC Dinner Series and the Treatment Access Program (TAP), a transportation assistance program that served all of Oregon and reduced the geographic barrier to care. Through the coalition, PLP heard patients express concern that they were receiving outdated information and were struggling more to find needed support and resources from their providers. Understandably, nurse navigators and social workers could not maintain and/or update patient resources while they assisted COVID patients. The goal of the coalition was to increase communication across the organizations and to share more event schedules for the ease of patients to understand what support programs are available. This session, delivered by an all breast cancer patient panel, will give an overview of Pink Lemonade Project;its programs that helps with psychological, emotional, community and financial support for breast cancer patients, survivors and those living with metastatic breast cancer;and will highlight the results from the patient point of view of the systematic review of the contents of 6 regional health systems new patient binders and present recommendations for consistent, community-wide content for all future breast cancer patients. The project's main strength was that Pink Lemonade Project could draw upon on an existing coalition of local, community-based breast cancer organizations to help update and standardize breast cancer support information from the patient point of view. Then by acting as a neutral convener, PLP could request and receive the binders from all the region's healthcare providers to help standardize and update the community resources across all the region's cancer centers. The result is that any new breast cancer patient, regardless of where their access to care is, can receive consistent community-based information and resources. Another result of this project showed the importance of the partnership of healthcare and human service agencies, especially in a post-pandemic world. As the pandemic continues to strain healthcare, community-based nonprofits have a unique role to help coordinate community resources and improve the quality of life for those affected by breast cancer.