Case

AI streamlines personalised cancer care planning

Consid, Tenfifty and the Regional Cancer Centres have initiated a collaboration to renew “My care plan” using AI. The aim is to streamline the process of creating personalised patient information within cancer care, freeing up time for healthcare professionals and enabling more effective use of their expertise. By combining IT and AI expertise, the project sets a new standard for how digital technology can enhance patient care.

People diagnosed with cancer have the right to, and need, clear and accessible information. That is why My care plan exists as a national knowledge support tool for patients in cancer care. Today, we rely on clinically active contact nurses, physicians, physiotherapists and other professionals in cancer care to spend a great deal of time writing and adapting texts for different audiences, so that recommendations in care programmes and clinical guidelines become understandable to the general public. At a time when healthcare is under constant pressure due to staff shortages, it is vital that we use professional competence in the best possible way and do not spend time on tasks that can be solved with modern technology.

Claire Micaux, project manager and national coordinator for My care plan cancer at the Regional Cancer Centres.

Background

“My care plan” is a personalised tool that gives cancer patients participation and influence throughout the entire care journey. It is a personal plan specifically tailored to the patient’s diagnosis and needs, containing essential information about treatment pathways, self-care, healthcare contacts, as well as support and resources during treatment and rehabilitation.

In January 2024, a workshop was held with Consid, Tenfifty and the Regional Cancer Centres to explore how AI tools could be integrated to support the work with My care plan. This marked the start of a feasibility study carried out during the spring of the same year.

–During our first joint workshop, the Regional Cancer Centres explained their operations and specific challenges. It quickly became clear that there was a strong need to streamline and support the work involved in producing My care plan. This insight enabled us to identify, at an early stage, clear opportunities where AI could play a crucial role, says Isabella Lund, project manager at Consid.

Feasibility study

During the feasibility study, a target vision was defined for the expected benefits of the solution.

-Through a series of collaborative exercises with the Regional Cancer Centres, we were able to map how the organisation works today and what prevents professionals from using their expertise in a meaningful way. We also identified the value a potential solution could bring, both to the organisation and to patients. Our goal is to create a more time-efficient and consistent way of producing My care plan with reliable content. By freeing up time for healthcare professionals to focus on more qualified tasks, we also hope to increase acceptance across the wider organisation for the important work behind My care plan. Finally, we want to ensure that the content is better adapted to each individual patient and their needs, says Niknam Moslehi, UX designer at Consid.

Through extensive analysis of existing processes and workflows, several time-consuming aspects were identified, including the slow journey from initial draft to published care plan. AI was identified as a key component in accelerating and streamlining this process.

–The feasibility study explored how AI could be used to support the creation and revision of My care plan. By analysing existing workflows, user needs and data sources, the study aimed to identify areas where AI could contribute through efficiency gains, more accurate data analysis and audience-adapted versions of My care plan. As a result, acceptance of the process within the organisation is also expected to increase, says Isabella Lund, project manager at Consid.

Solution

The project proposes several AI-based capabilities to support and streamline the work with My care plan, including:

• automatic draft generation
• local writing assistance
• reference suggestions
• language adaptation of content

These AI capabilities will be integrated into a web-based interface for easy access and use. The goal is to reduce the time and effort required to create and adapt My care plan, while improving quality and accuracy.

–At Tenfifty, we are proud to contribute our AI expertise to streamline and improve care planning within cancer care. By using AI, and in this case generative AI, to generate care plans, we can free up valuable time for healthcare professionals, allowing them to focus on tasks where their expertise truly matters. This project clearly demonstrates how AI can help make healthcare more accessible and equitable for all patients, says Anders Bjurström, CEO at Tenfifty.

Expected outcomes

The solution is expected to make My care plan more clearly tailored to different patient groups and therefore more useful for patients. In addition, healthcare professionals will be able to spend less time creating content and more time on other valuable tasks, creating greater capacity within care services.

–We hope this solution will give new momentum to the teams currently responsible for developing My care plan for different diagnoses, and help them see the results of their hard work more quickly, while maintaining or improving quality. When healthcare professionals can act as expert advisors rather than content writers, time is freed up elsewhere, which we believe will increase motivation to participate in development work. Furthermore, if we can clearly demonstrate that all information included in My care plan is based on existing care programmes, national guidelines and current research literature, trust in the service will increase within healthcare. The solution could become a new model for producing knowledge support not only within cancer care, but also in many other areas facing similar challenges, says Claire Micaux.

This project marks a new and exciting phase in the production of knowledge support, and we look forward to developing and implementing solutions that will improve outcomes for cancer patients.

Isabella Lund

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