Table 1 Implementation strategies used for GoodLife-Cancer Survivorship

Planning - Strategies in relation to establishing goals and creating courses of action to achieve them

• Consultation with and engagement of hospital and community health professionals and consumer representative

• Support from senior leadership of the participating community health services as the project was sponsored by the general manager of one of the community health services

• Support from frontline staff in hospital and community health settings

• Review of administration support and training needs of all participating community health services

• Referral to the survivorship program was previously evaluated in a pilot study

• Multidisciplinary implementation team involving hospital and community health professionals and managers, academic researchers, and a consumer representative

• Guidance from a steering group, including hospital and community health service managers/executive, a consumer representative, cancer networks/agencies, and the Department of Health

• Adoption of Proctor’s implementation framework

• Implementation was tailored to each setting

• Targeting and engaging three additional community health services to deliver GL-CS

Organizing - Modifying structures, allocating resources including staff, delegating tasks to achieve goals established during planning

• Upskilling and certification of key staff – community health professionals were trained in cancer survivorship care, which involved prerequisite modules on cancer treatment protocols and information for use at the point of care, workshop format with content and discussion, and case studies.

• Additional staff appointments:

 o 0.5 EFT for a combined Senior Clinician/Project Manager role

 o in kind support from one of the community health services – Allied Health Assistant to coordinate local client system procedures, Marketing/Communication/Corporate Services

 o each community health service partner offset 0.2EFT salary for the Allied Health Assistants/Administrative Assistants

• Delegation of new tasks to existing staff

• Appointment of program champions in hospital specialist nurses

• Designating a communication path between hospital staff, the project manager, and community health staff

Leading - Encouraging and enabling people to take effective action

• Staff development - Allied Health Assistants/Administrative Assistants were trained in project administration tasks

• Development of promotional material for recruitment purposes

• Distribution of information in forums/oncology grand rounds and site visits (as COVID permitted)

• Adaptation of paper-based forms to electronic systems - The referral form was available on the hospital intranet site, but not embedded in the hospital medical record (future development)

• Communication with staff about the implementation through site visits

• Redeveloping assessment, treatment, and referral practices

• Nurse champions and allied health staff acting as change agents

• Financial incentives – upskilling of community allied health professionals was fully covered

• Negotiations with management in community health services regarding the established chronic disease management model of care

Monitoring - Evaluating the execution of the plan and making adjustments to ensure goals are achieved

• Audits of data collection were completed monthly at each community health service

• Supervision of data collection and maintenance by the project manager

• Feedback on the program and its operations were collected through interviews and focus groups

External influences - Organisations and individuals external to the organisation exerting an influence on the intervention

• Academics involvement in the planning and evaluation process

• Government funding supported the project

• Cancer-focused agencies were consulted and actively involved at the steering committee and project team level

• External non-academic integrated cancer service organisation was involved in training staff

• Clinicians and oncologists influenced the selection of target populations