Supporting the Mental Health of Cancer Patients

Cancer is among the primary causes of death in the United States. In 2022, experts estimate around 1.9 million new cancer cases and 609,360 deaths from this disease.

These figures suggest that doctors need better diagnostic tools and methods to detect cancer and support cancer patients.

How can an EHR (electronic health record) platform help support the mental health needs of cancer patients? What is the impact of being diagnosed with rare cancer on a patient’s well-being?

What’s the importance of a mental health software, and how can it support cancer patients?

What are the other types of cancer diagnosis, and how can you best support the mental health of people diagnosed with the disease?

This article discusses how an EHR platform can assist medical practitioners in supporting cancer patients’ mental health needs. It also talks about the gravity of getting diagnosed with rare cancer on a patient’s well-being.

We’ll also discuss the importance of EHRs and how they can support cancer patients. We’ll explore the other types of cancer diagnosis and how you can best support the mental health of people diagnosed with the disease.

How Electronic Health Records Can Help Support the Mental Health of Cancer Patients

Cancer isn’t only one disease but several different conditions based on which body part the cancer occurs. For example, mesothelioma and its different stages occur in the thin tissue around the lungs and abdomen.

Depending on the diagnosis, cancer can have different effects on a person’s mental condition. So it’s crucial that families and loved ones must support the mental health of the patient diagnosed with the disease.

Medical practitioners can provide such support using a reliable EHR that addresses a patient’s mental health needs.

A reliable EHR platform for medical practitioners running a mental health clinic should provide the following services:

Better prescription: The right EHR platform can help mental health practitioners prescribe the correct medicine by pulling the patient’s data to suggest appropriate medication options.

This automated and simplified prescription process can help mental health practitioners stay updated with the proper medication for any given condition.

Improved medication management: Using EHR software tailored for mental health needs can help healthcare professionals track patient medications and prescriptions, minimizing prescription error risk.
Coordinated care: The right EHR platform for mental health can let healthcare providers collaborate easily.

The Importance of Mental Health Software and How It Can Support Cancer Patients

An EHR is a configurable and flexible platform that allows medical practitioners to manage patient data to provide sound mental health solutions.

Through Foothold Technology’s experience and expertise in the mental health field, this software delivers a tailor-fitted solution to a mental health clinic’s needs.

This mental health EHR has a user-friendly design allowing mental health professionals to work with relative ease in any setting, like inpatient or outpatient clinics and community-based programs.

A mental health software provides the following:

Flexible and easily manageable treatment plans that can track each person’s goals and objectives
Coordinated counseling, treatment, and rehabilitation through easy-to-use scheduling, medication features, and progress notes
Updates to keep you on track to meet regulatory requirements using Foothold Technology’s extensive mental healthcare experience

Foothold Technology also provides a suite of solutions that medical professionals can use in combination with mental health software. These solutions include:

Developmental disabilities software: Allows the tracking and managing of data associated with services supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Substance use disorder software: Provides a solution to manage data related to substance use treatment and recovery programs.
Care management software: Supports the specific requirements of health homes backed by experts with extensive experience in the care management industry.

Other Types of Cancer Diagnosis and How You Can Best Support the Mental Health of People Diagnosed With the Disease

There are more than 100 cancer types depending on where the tumor occurs in your body. Depending on the diagnosis, the effects of these conditions on your patients’ mental health can vary.

Getting diagnosed with cancer can affect one’s emotional health. Not only the person with cancer gets affected but also their families and caregivers.

Common feelings one can encounter during this life-changing experience include anxiety, excessive sweating, depression, and distress.

Some cancer survivors may also experience PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome), especially after getting diagnosed with a fatal illness like mesothelioma.

These feelings can affect your home, school, and work activities, so it’s essential to recognize and acknowledge these changes so you can immediately seek help.

For example, prostate cancer is one of the treatable forms of cancer. While a person diagnosed with this cancer may feel anxious upon first knowing they have the disease, they may feel hopeful later, knowing there’s a possibility of treatment.

But other cancers like pancreatic cancer and mesothelioma are mostly incurable. Getting diagnosed with these diseases may have different psychological and emotional effects.

Sometimes, a person won’t admit to having these feelings despite showing the symptoms. But once they’re willing to admit their emotional and psychological feelings and are uncomfortable with them, therapy can step in and help.

The Impact of Getting Diagnosed With a Rare Cancer on a Patient’s Well-Being

Each year in the United States, more than 1.5 million people get diagnosed with cancer, and about half a million Americans die from this disease.

From these figures, rare cancers comprise over a quarter of those diagnoses. Rare diseases are those with a prevalence of less than 200,000, based on the definition set by the U.S. Rare Diseases Act of 2002.

One study showed that people diagnosed with rare cancers at a young age and those with an unmarried status are likely to have poorer mental status. Meanwhile, older and unmarried people undergoing treatment are likely to have poorer physical health.

The study also mentioned that registrants with gynecological cancers and those unmarried or with less education are likely to report greater loneliness.

These findings suggest that people with a rare cancer diagnosis are at a greater physical and mental health risk than those diagnosed with common cancers.

Such outcomes also suggest an opportunity for mental health EHRs and related software to improve quality and service and enhance how medical professionals perform patient diagnosis and support.