Rural and remote Australians’ struggle to access quality healthcare is benefitting from a game-changing development in the delivery of virtual services.
Perth provider Chronic Care Australia has partnered with big pharma to improve the quality of life of 50 West Australian’s receiving treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Lung cancer is the fifth most prevalent cancer in Australia with 13,810 new cases diagnosed in 2021 of which NSCLC is the most common, making up 60 percent of cases.
Director and co-founder of Chronic Care Australia Katie Stewart said that “as indicated on the Australian cancer atlas, the Pilbara, goldfields, and Bunbury are the regions in WA with the highest mortality to incidence ratio of lung cancer.”
“Being able to support these remote and regional areas free of charge with exercise medicine programs that help increase resilience to anti-cancer treatments like chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiotherapy is a huge breakthrough.
“The fact the programs are delivered virtually allows people in remote and regional communities to access the same services and level of care that those in metro areas benefit from.”
The twelve-week exercise medicine programs are run by qualified exercise physiologists who have been trained to assess and support the mental and physical health of people with lung cancer as they navigate treatment.
“This pilot is an opportunity to establish new partnerships in service delivery that reduces costs to Australians and gives those most in need access to services that previously would have been only available to those who could afford it or those in metro areas where the services are based,” Katie said.
“This is huge opportunity to showcase the potential impact this new model of care could have on Australian communities. With continued support from global pharmaceutical companies, we could extend such opportunities to Australians with varied chronic health conditions including type 2 diabetes, long covid, mental illness, heart disease and complex care conditions.
“This is preventative healthcare that doesn’t cost the system or the consumer anything and we’re calling out to all GPs, specialist respiratory physicians, oncologists and lung cancer support groups to nominate those with NSCLC who would benefit from additional support and exercise medicine prescription.
“We are limited to only fifty people for this particular pilot trial but hope to be able to extend it to many more people in need with chronic conditions across the country by the end of the year.”
Participants can be male, female or non-binary Australian citizens between the ages of 30-60 with diagnosed NSCLC who are undergoing any prescriptive anticancer treatment including chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy, and as the program is run virtually, all that is required is a mobile or computer and access to WIFI.