Identification of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cancer patients in the primary health care setting

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians experience up to 30% higher cancer mortality rates than non-Indigenous Australians. With the increasing role of primary care in cancer care this study has aimed to identify Indigenous cancer patients in the primary health care setting. Focused in Queenland the study targeted both mainstream and government-operated centres. Participating clinics were asked to identify the number of indigenous cancer patients and outline how they were able to abtain the information. Overall, six different types of Patient Care Information Systems (PCIS) were used across ten participating centres. Of these, two centres were not able to recover information using their PCIS and either needed to search paper records or use staff recall to identify indigenous cancer patients. It is important to be able to easily identify Indigenous cancer patients in order to improve research evaluating patient progress, quality of cancer care and for improving patient outcomes. This is the first study to address whether and how Indigenous cancer patients are identified in the primary health care setting.   Read the full article here.
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