Nurse-led virtual prostate cancer clinic for survivorship care: Qualitative study of healthcare professional experiences and needs

Abstract

Background: Approximately one in eight Canadian males will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Longer survivorship horizons and resource constraints are leading to increasing strain on current models of specialist-led follow-up care delivery. Nurse-led digital health innovations can reduce demand on specialists if co-designed with health care professionals (HCPs). Methods: Using human-centred design, the purpose of this exploratory qualitative study with ten HCPs was to characterize their experiences with prostate cancer (PCa) follow-up and virtual care to optimally situate a nurse-led clinic within this ecosystem. Results: HCPs highlight how current follow-up care can be fragmented, so the scope of a nurse-led clinic should focus on the management of care with referral as needed. Despite an ambivalence for telemedicine arising from its implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic, HCPs see potential for improved care through digital health but note several concerns. Burn-out, weakened patient-provider relationships, and creeping scope of responsibilities were identified as pain points. We provide a health ecosystem readiness checklist to improve odds of acceptability, appropriateness, and feasibility synthesized from six HCP-defined facilitators mapped onto Proctor’s outcomes. Facilitators include: functionality testing (acceptability), technical support and usability (adoption), expectation management (appropriateness), resource allocation (cost), staff readiness (feasibility), and staff training (penetration). Conclusion: Intentional and empathetic co-design with HCPs during the development of digital health innovations, such as digital therapeutics, is necessary to ensure that HCPs can benefit from, instead of being burdened from, the rising tide of digital health in their clinical responsibilities.