With the health-care objective to increasingly shift patient care from hospitals to the community and homes, there is an urgent need to better support family carers who are commonly at the core of patient care. Indeed, many carers report feeling disempowered, excluded and ill-equipped to care for their loved ones, which leads to carers reporting high levels of unmet needs, psychological/physical morbidity and carer burden. Whilst clinicians recognise and value carer involvement, many find triadic (clinician-patient-carer) consultations challenging and want help with navigating these challenging situations, such as when patient and family hold conflicting treatment wishes. Managing such complex situations requires confidence and skills, yet interventions for clinicians to improve the involvement and management of carers have been sparse. For the past 10 years, our team has conducted the TRIadic Oncology (TRIO) research program, which culminated in the development of the world-first TRIO clinical guidelines and accompanying training videos, to help oncology clinicians effectively and supportively engage and manage family involvement in cancer consultation and patient care. This talk will outline our key TRIO initiatives, as well as the main lessons we have learnt during the recent process of translating the TRIO guidelines into the cutting-edge online education modules for i) oncology clinicians, ii) patients, and iii) family carers, in order to facilitate implementation of the TRIO evidence-based strategies into clinical practice. The ultimate goal of our research is to shift the status of carers from an under-served, vulnerable, and disempowered population to being confident, engaged, and supported participants in the cancer care process; and the focus from ‘patient-centred’ to more holistic ‘family-centred’ care.
