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Healthcare Professional Optimal Care Pathways

Optimal Care Pathways (OCPs) are designed to improve patient outcomes, by ensuring blood cancer specialists, treating hospitals, GPs and patients have access to the same, nationally consistent best practice treatment, care options and information across the country.

Benefits of Optimal Care Pathways for blood cancer

  • developed by Australia’s leading blood cancer specialists
  • developed with input from patient representatives
  • endorsed by Federal, State and Territory health departments
  • define optimal care for a patient diagnosed with a particular type of blood cancer.

Thanks to work recently completed by Australia’s Blood Cancer Taskforce, and previous work completed by the Cancer Council, there are now eight detailed Optimal Care Pathways available for blood cancer types.

Each Optimal Care Pathway (OCP) can be broken into three major components:

  1. A complete OCP which outlines the pathways and timelines that define optimal care for someone diagnosed with this particular type of blood cancer, suitable for healthcare professionals,
  2. A quick reference guide, which summarises the OCP and allows for quick access to information for healthcare professionals,
  3. A guide to best cancer care which is a version of the OCP specifically designed for patients and their loved ones.

Optimal Care Pathways are available for the following blood cancer and disorder types:

Optimal Care Pathways are one of the key recommendations in Australia’s National Strategic Action Plan for Blood Cancer. They will help you, as a health professional, provide nationally consistent, high-quality, evidence-based information at each stage of the blood cancer pathway, from diagnosis and treatment to ongoing care.