Clinical pathways in cancer care

Receiving a cancer diagnosis is overwhelming. Navigating cancer treatment can feel just as daunting. Patients are faced with a team of specialists, a range of treatment options, and countless decisions, all of which depend on the type and stage of their cancer.

To bring more clarity to this process, many cancer care centers use clinical pathways. These structured, evidence-based treatment plans provide guidance and clarity, standardize care, and even lead to better treatment outcomes.

Let’s take a closer look at what clinical pathways are and the role they play in improving treatment for all types of cancer.

What are clinical pathways?

Think of a clinical pathway (also called a “care pathway”) like a blueprint for cancer treatment. It uses the latest research and expert recommendations to outline a detailed, step-by-step guide for treating a specific type of cancer.

Each patient is unique, so there’s still room for nuance and personalization in treatment. However, clinical pathways give providers a roadmap for caring for a patient at each stage of the disease, which helps improve the consistency and quality of care.

Clinical pathways are often mentioned along with clinical guidelines. And, while they sound similar, they serve different (but related) roles in cancer care:

• Clinical guidelines: Broad, evidence-based recommendations that outline what should be done for a specific disease or condition. They provide guidance but don’t offer exact steps or timing.

• Clinical pathways: Detailed, step-by-step plans that translate guidelines into a specific sequence of care for patients, showing exactly how and when tests, treatments, and follow-ups should happen.

Put simply, clinical guidelines inform clinical pathways—but pathways are far more detailed and prescriptive. Guidelines provide treatment information, while pathways are treatment tools.

What are the key components of clinical pathways?

Because clinical pathways touch every stage of cancer care, they pull a wide range of guidance into a single, structured plan. This means the typical elements of a clinical pathway touch every part of the patient journey, including:

• Diagnosis and assessment: Tests and scans to confirm the type, stage, and spread of cancer, along with checks on a patient’s overall health.
• Treatment options: Recommendations for surgery, radiation, drug therapies, or combinations, plus supportive care to address side effects.
• Monitoring and adjustment: Regular evaluations to see how treatment is working and make changes when needed.
• Follow-up and survivorship: Ongoing care after treatment, from conducting recurrence checks to managing long-term side effects to supporting recovery.
• Flexibility and personalization: Built-in points where care can be tailored to each patient’s unique needs, preferences, and circumstances (such as eligibility for clinical trials or other treatment options).
• Team coordination: Guidance for collaboration across specialists to ensure care is consistent and connected.

Why clinical pathways matter in cancer care

Clinical pathways guide providers, but they also give patients a clearer sense of what to expect. These plans make a complicated journey a little more manageable for everybody involved and offer a range of benefits, including:

• Ensuring consistency: By standardizing treatment steps, there’s less variation across providers and care settings. This helps ensure patients receive reliable, evidence-based care.
• Improving quality: Built on the latest clinical evidence and best practices, clinical pathways are linked to better health and treatment outcomes, including reduced hospital stays and more efficient care delivery.
• Enhancing patient safety: Pathways reduce unnecessary or redundant tests and procedures, which not only improves the patient experience but also lowers the risk of errors and complications.
• Supporting shared decision-making: By clearly outlining treatment steps and options, pathways help patients understand what to expect, thereby reducing their confusion and anxiety. When overwhelm is one of the most commonly cited emotions when receiving a cancer diagnosis and navigating care, clinical pathways give patients much-needed clarity and confidence.
• Facilitating team coordination: With so many moving parts, effective coordination of cancer care is a common challenge. Pathways provide a shared framework for all members of the care team—oncologists, nurses, therapists, and other specialists. They keep all of the providers aligned and working toward the same treatment goals.
• Promoting cost-effective, value-based care: Standardizing care around evidence-based practices can reduce unnecessary treatments, optimize resources, and support healthcare systems in delivering high-value care.

The relationship between clinical pathways and value-based care

Clinical pathways are just one part of a broader push for value-based care—an approach that puts patients above profits by rewarding providers for the quality of tests and treatments, rather than the quantity. The focus is on improving patient outcomes instead of delivering more procedures.

Clinical pathways fit naturally into a value-based care model because they provide a clear, evidence-based roadmap for treatment. By standardizing care using proven best practices, pathways help patients receive the right treatments at the right time. This improves the quality of care and also avoids unnecessary or redundant procedures that add cost without any benefit.

Clinical pathways also promote consistency and coordination across providers and care settings, so patients receive high-quality care regardless of where they are treated. They also have a better understanding of each step of their treatment, so they can feel confident in the choices they make alongside their care team.

With clinical pathways, cancer treatment feels less like a complicated (and costly) puzzle and more like a collaborative process.

Navigating cancer care can feel overwhelming, but clinical pathways make the journey more manageable. By standardizing care around the latest evidence, patients receive high-quality, coordinated treatment—without all of the complexity and confusion.

At Carrum Health, every cancer center of excellence in our network follows clinical pathways, and we evaluate them carefully to make sure they meet these standards. With Carrum, cancer care isn’t left to chance—it follows a proven path to the best possible outcomes.

Learn more about Carrum’s Cancer Care program here.

The information contained on this page is for informational purposes only. No material is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.