The Orkdal Model. Collaboration Between Specialist and Community Care Within Palliative Cancer Care

The overall aim of this project is to deliver better health care services through improved coordination of cancer care within specialist care (at the local hospital Orkdal Hospital) and community care (13 municipalities in the Orkdal region, Norway), and between these two levels in the health care system. "The Orkdal model" is developed and will be implemented and evaluated within cancer care. Cancer patients living in one of the 12 municipalities participating in the formal collaboration "Samhandlingsenheten i Orkdalsregionen" (SIO), or the municipality of Oppdal, having metastatic and/or loco-regional disease will be included in the study. Family members and health care providers will be included as well. Results from this project will be transferable to other parts of Norway and/or to other countries as well as to patients with other diagnoses causing complex conditions, such as chronic heart-, lung- and neurological disease.