APEX LifeStrong OCC Program

APEX LifeStrong Oncology Care Continuum focuses on the enhancement of patient engagement through team-based collaboration and continuity of care with all providers involved across the continuum. Our team uses integrative palliative and hospice-based medicine while integrating continuity, care coordination and advanced planning and management that is patient specific. Providing the patient with choice and voice in their journey with cancer.
Research
Concerns about the incidence of cancer in a community are not uncommon. Unfortunately, cancer is a common disease, sometimes more common than many people believe. At the present time the National Cancer Institute estimates that in the United States, one in two men have a lifetime risk of developing cancer. For women, the lifetime risk is one in three. The number of people with cancer is increasing in most communities because more and more people are living to an age of greatest cancer occurrence. It would not be unusual to find numerous cases of cancer in one small area, even more than one cancer in the same household.
Research indicates that 12,000 males and 11,000 females die annually a burdened death, caused by cancer. Every day in Illinois an average of 183 individuals are diagnosed with cancer and approximately 63 cancer patients die each day. Below is provided by the Illinois Department of Public Health, 2018 cancer statistics, which have continued to rise year over year in Illinois. More than 1.6 million individuals are diagnosed with cancer each year, nationally.
The APEX Hospice and Palliative Care mission aligns with the everchanging healthcare systems that care for individuals who have been diagnosed with cancer
How It Works
Cancer patients should be referred for Palliative services upon their initial diagnosis and as they begin their chosen cancer treatments. Palliative should be a member of the oncology coordination team.
Cancer patients should be referred to Hospice at stage IV and if they are limited on treatments still available to them or earlier if a patient chooses to discontinue any further treatment.
Components of LifeStrong include, but are not limited to: