The Palliative Care Questions to Ask Every Advanced Breast Cancer Patient

At Johns Hopkins Medicine, the TEAM approach is being used to improve oncology outcomes by incorporating palliative care in practice for patients with advanced breast cancer. TEAM (Time, Education, Assessment, and Management) requires approximately one hour of additional time with the patient each month, focused on patient education, assessment, and management.

“It is an extra hour every month, not once. [But] it doesn’t have to be done by the doctor. It can be an advanced practice or [other trained] nurse,” said Thomas Smith, MD, director of palliative medicine and professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins. The hour can be spent in person, by phone, or by telemedicine, but it has to be structured and include assessments, he added.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) strongly recommends palliative care for every advanced cancer patient by an interdisciplinary team, concurrent with oncology care, within 8 weeks of diagnosis. Click here for more.