Challenge
People living with chronic blood cancers in Australia face significant ongoing challenges despite major advances in treatment. Survival for conditions such as multiple myeloma (MM), chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), and myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) has improved substantially, but these conditions remain associated with high symptom burden, infection risk, cardiovascular disease, secondary cancers, and financial toxicity. Although survivorship guidelines recommend comprehensive risk assessment and coordinated care, these are not routinely part of haematology follow-up care. This gap is even greater in regional and rural settings, where workforce limitations, travel burden, and fragmented services create additional barriers to care.
Focus
The Living Better with Myeloma (LBWM) clinic, co-designed and piloted at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, demonstrated the feasibility and acceptability of a structured nurse and pharmacist-led survivorship model embedded within routine haematology care.
While initially developed for multiple myeloma, the model addresses survivorship needs common among patients living with chronic blood cancers requiring long-term therapy. This project will scale and adapt the LBWM model to Bendigo Health, the regional cancer centre serving the Loddon Mallee Region by replicating the co-design and care-mapping process to adapt the model to the local setting and piloting and evaluating implementation outcomes. A final cross-site workshop will bring together metropolitan and regional learnings to develop a scalable approach for delivering survivorship care across blood cancer services.
Impact
This project directly addresses a complex real-world challenge in Australian blood cancer care: translating survivorship guidelines into sustainable, equitable routine practice beyond metropolitan tertiary centres. By focusing on a regional implementation, capability building and adaptation, this project will generate evidence to support the delivery across blood cancers more broadly, extending beyond myeloma to improve support for people living with chronic blood cancers across Australia.
Researcher
Dr Lisa Guccione is a Senior Research Fellow and Implementation Science Lead at the Centre for Health Services Research, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Australia’s largest comprehensive cancer centre. She is a behavioural scientist and implementation science specialist in cancer whose research is dedicated to closing the gap between evidence and practice. Her work spans a diverse portfolio of projects across cancer streams and clinical disciplines, focusing on embedding evidence-based care into health systems, reducing inequities in access and outcomes, and ensuring research translates into meaningful improvements for people affected by cancer. She also contributes to national implementation efforts through her role as Chair of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA) Implementation Working Group for Exercise in Cancer.
