Cancer survivorship care plans: what can be learned from hospital discharge summaries?

The Institute of Medicine panel on cancer survivorship recommended that all patients with cancer and their primary care providers receive a written survivorship care plan that summarizes their initial treatment and provides guidance on post-treatment management. Cancer survivorship care plans aim to improve coordination of care and communication between providers as their patients transition from oncology to primary care settings. As such, survivorship care plans share similarities with hospital discharge summaries, focusing on improving the transition from inpatient to outpatient settings. In this article, we explore potential lessons that may be learned from hospital discharge summaries, which may be used to facilitate the development, implementation, and testing of survivorship care plans.