The challenges of the integration of cancer survivorship care plans with electronic medical records.

Objectives: To provide an overview of issues and challenges associated with integrating development of survivorship care plan processes with electronic medical records (EMRs).

Data Sources: Published peer-reviewed literature.

Conclusion: Evidence seems to indicate that survivorship care plans have value to survivors, oncology specialist providers, and primary care providers. Yet, the existence of cost and time restraints are major barriers to creation and use of survivorship care plans, and the expectations that EMR can simplify and expedite survivorship care plan development have yet to be realized.

Implications For Nursing Practice: Nurses participating in the development of survivorship programs can contribute to successful implementation of EMR-facilitated survivorship care plans by involvement in strategic planning processes, and establishment of reasonable timelines to address the known and unknown barriers, and assuring the resulting EMR product includes essential data and information.