The Cancer Patient Education Network (CPEN) honored the Patient Education Team from Penn Medicine’s OncoLink with the 2018 Excellence in Patient Education Award. The award recognizes individuals or programs that use creative approaches to develop and circulate cancer education to patients and healthcare professionals. The OncoLink team received the award during the CPEN annual meeting in Atlanta.
Launched in 1994, OncoLink was the first cancer information website on the internet and remains one of the largest, with a mission to support patients, caregivers, and practitioners with up-to-date information on all aspects of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery.
OncoLink’s information covers all types of cancer, treatment options, risk factors, prevention strategies, and survivorship concerns, with the intent to help patients and families make educated treatment decisions and become active participants in their care. Other features include a section to help newly diagnosed patients navigate their cancer experience.
OncoLink also provides tools and educational materials to support the practice of busy practitioners, including on treatment education, psychosocial support and survivorship care plans. These create a one-stop shop for patient education, enabling more impactful patient interactions, improving patient-provider communication and satisfaction.
Among its accomplishments, the team has produced a survivorship care-plan builder. The resulting care plans aim to ease common concerns expressed by cancer survivors. This tool has been used to create over 80,000 individualized care plans, which have received positive feedback. The team continues to refine the tool based on the needs of cancer survivors and care providers. The team also regularly expands and updates OncoLink’s library of resources, including articles, videos, and blogs. Its work reaches millions of patients via the website as well as syndication and licensing partners.
