Abstract
With one in three New Zealanders experiencing a diagnosis of cancer during their lifetime, the New Zealand (NZ) national health care system plays a pivotal role in providing services to ensure optimal health outcomes for people diagnosed with this disease. In 2003 the NZ Cancer Control Strategy (NZCCS) set overall aims and objectives for improving care and reducing inequalities, and as one of many programmes driven by the strategy, the Cancer Nurse Coordinator Initiative (CNCI) was launched in 2013. The aim of this initiative is to practically support individuals and targeted populations who may otherwise experience barriers to accessing timely cancer care, and to provide this support the Cancer Nurse Coordinator (CNC) role was created.
The CNC role is an advanced practice nursing specialty that is new to NZ, which resulted in a level of confusion and uncertainty regarding the concept and components of the role.
The objectives of this dissertation were to identify common key components associated with care coordination services for cancer patients provided by nurses, and compare these with the NZ CNCI. An integrative review of international literature was performed to examine the topic. In order to best compare international practice to the NZ situation, inclusion and exclusion criteria were created that were in line with the current parameters of service for the CNCI; that is newly diagnosed adults with cancer, who were not receiving palliative care.
Three synthesised findings were found, these focused on: the care given to the patient, interactions with health professionals and the system surrounding the patient, and the characteristics surrounding the role of the nurse. The findings from the integrative review were examined further and compared to the 2015 evaluation of the NZ CNCI programme. It was found that the key components of cancer care coordination as demonstrated by the CNC of NZ correlate with those articulated in the international literature for similar nursing roles.