Evaluating Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation's Model for Alberta's Health System

We worked with the Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation to explore how its model of care could be adapted and integrated to better support Alberta’s health system.

Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation was a pioneer in the provision of supportive care for breast cancer patients in Calgary. It worked to empower individuals with breast cancer, their families, and those at high risk of developing breast cancer to achieve optimal wellness through the highest standard of compassion and integrated supportive care.

Understand

The Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation engaged us in May 2018 to develop and conduct an evaluation of its services to determine how its model could be adapted and integrated with other supportive care services in Alberta to better serve patients and families dealing with cancer.

Uncover

We first needed to understand Breast Cancer Supportive Care’s model and Alberta’s breast cancer supportive care environment. We conducted a thorough environmental scan, including a document review, literature review and interviews with key stakeholders in the province. Using this information we created a logic model to describe its supportive model of care.

We also needed to understand what portions of the model were effective and which weren’t. To do that we analyzed patient outcome and experience data and interviewed health care providers within and outside the breast cancer supportive care foundation to understand their experience. Lastly we looked at costs for administering the various programs.

Utilize

The findings were used by the Breast Cancer Supportive Care Foundation to better understand its work, how it made a difference, and which particular aspects of its model were most effective. This information is being used to inform ongoing discussions with others in the health system about how to integrate its work.