Optimal Care Pathways for fairer access to cancer care for all South Australians

The Com­mis­sion of Excel­lence and Inno­va­tion in Health (CEIH) in part­ner­ship with the South Aus­tralian Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Net­work (SAC­CaN) are lead­ing a project to make can­cer care fair­er and more con­sis­tent across the state by using Opti­mal Care Path­ways (OCPs). This work sup­ports both the Aus­tralian Can­cer Plan and the South Aus­tralian Can­cer Plan, and shows a statewide com­mit­ment to pre­ven­tion, ear­ly diag­no­sis, and improved survivorship.

Opti­mal Care Path­ways (OCPs) are nation­al­ly approved guide­lines that show what good can­cer care looks like. These path­ways set out the key steps and stan­dards for dif­fer­ent can­cer types, mak­ing sure every­one gets high qual­i­ty, evi­dence based care no mat­ter where they live or who treats them.

In South Aus­tralia, we do not have enough reli­able data to clear­ly under­stand how close­ly can­cer care aligns with OCPs. Two main chal­lenges exist: putting OCP rec­om­men­da­tions into every­day prac­tice giv­en lim­it­ed resources and find­ing, and com­pil­ing data to track and mea­sure how well health ser­vices fol­low OCPs.