NATIONAL CANCER AWARENESS DAY: HERE'S WHAT AN ONCOLOGIST WANTS YOU TO KNOW

This basically means knowledge about your problems and addressing the barriers to access care which exist for many patients across the world.

How do we identify the gaps and work on it

1. Identify high-risk groups like people with certain addictions, occupations, family history etc for screening and preventive programmes. These risk group can be subjected to focused counselling and testing.

2. The patients who are already diagnosed with cancer and possibly not taking treatment due to poor social support or economic reasons should be identified and a holistic approach should be taken to manage them adequately.

3. There may be not enough facilities in the area where the patient stays. Developing care facility which includes talent and technology such that more and more population can be addressed is the key.

4. Patient may not have enough information about his or her condition. This requires better communication on the part of the caregiver and the healthcare provider and also having more coordinators who can work to address this issues on a regular basis.

Patient Engagement strategies by healthcare providers can include: