Interdisciplinary Teams Addressing Social Risks in Cancer Care Webinar Series

Information regarding how interdisciplinary teams integrate, collaborate, and coordinate social care into cancer care is needed to improve equity in the delivery of quality cancer care, especially for cancer patients and survivors who are medically underserved, experiencing poverty, and in need of social care.

This series highlights important topics related to implementing interdisciplinary care team models and approaches for addressing social risks and needs of cancer patients and survivors across diverse care delivery settings. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care described five systems-level activities – Awareness, Adjustment, Assistance, Alignment, Advocacy – that healthcare organizations and healthcare teams can conduct to strengthen the integration of social care into clinical care. The report also identified key components for conducting these five activities, including appropriately staffed and trained interprofessional teams working together to address social conditions and provide efficient clinical care. The interprofessional team may include nurses, physicians, physical therapists, social workers, community health workers, patient navigators, pharmacists, home health aides, family caregivers, case managers, and lawyers. Understanding the role that each member of an interprofessional team plays across the five activities, as well as identifying the teamwork skills necessary to effectively coordinate and deliver social and cancer care are important for improving healthcare and health outcomes.

This series discusses existing interdisciplinary care workforce models for addressing social risks in cancer care, challenges for interdisciplinary care teams and healthcare organizations, and opportunities for value-based approaches aimed at improving the delivery of high-quality clinical and non-clinical care for cancer patients.

Learning Objectives

• Identify the composition and roles of the interdisciplinary teams addressing social risks and needs of individuals diagnosed with cancer
• Describe effective team-based care approaches for integrating social care into cancer care while improving care coordination
• Identify challenges with developing interdisciplinary social-oncology care teams across diverse community and healthcare settings
• Identify research opportunities for improving cancer disparities and inequities through team-based care and care coordination

Target Audience

This webinar series is intended for clinicians, researchers, community and health care leaders, cancer patients, survivors, and patient advocates.