Blackmores Institute

The survey, designed to assess aspects of cancer service coverage, especially complementary medicine services found that most hospitals did not have policies regarding complementary medicine practitioners or patient-initiated complementary medicine use.
 
 Conducted at the NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, the survey was completed by 262 of the 282 invited hospitals, of which 93 could not provide responses to one or more of the five policy-related survey questions.
 
 “This was despite the option to complete the survey across several log-in sessions and 223 of the respondents (85%) having administrator or management roles. Only 89 respondents (34%) were aware of the <a href="http://www.catag.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/150518_CAM-Position-statement-final.pdf" target="_blank">Council of Australian Therapeutic Advisory Groups (CATAG) position statement on complementary medicines</a>, and only 31 of these respondents thought that their hospital policies were aligned with this statement,“ the researchers reported.
 
 Instigating the survey based on the reported frequent use of complementary medicines by people with cancer, the researchers found, following further analysis, that hospitals without complementary medicines services were significantly less likely to have policies on complementary medicine practitioners, and on documenting complementary medicine use.
 
 “It has been reported that about 60% of patients commencing chemotherapy in Australia with curative intent and 47% of those receiving radiotherapy also use complementary medicine. Ingestible products are frequently used, but are often not discussed with the medical team, which increases the risk of interactions and other undesirable effects,” the researchers said.
 
 A substantial proportion of hospitals did not have policies regarding complementary medicine practitioners or patient‐initiated complementary medicine use. Most hospitals (87%) had policies for documenting complementary medicines, 33% documented all complementary medicines (including patient‐initiated products) on medication charts, 38% documented only complementary medicines approved by medical staff, and 21% documented complementary medicine use only in the clinical history. The policy at 17 hospitals (6%) was that complementary medicines were never permitted, despite CATAG advice.
 
 According to the results of the survey, only 47 percent of services provided complementary medicine information for patients with nine percent were unaware whether such information was available.
 
 The differences in the awareness of and the availability of hospital policies and patient information about complementary medicine are concerning. Irrespective of whether a cancer service provides complementary medicine, consistent policies across Australian hospitals, and staff and patient awareness of these policies, are important because of the widespread use of complementary medicine. 
 
 “Stronger leadership is needed from peak bodies, such as the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and CATAG, to encourage Australian cancer services and hospitals to update or review their complementary medicine policies,” the researchers concluded.
 
 Source:
 MJA. rel="noopener noreferrer" 2020. DOI: <a href="https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/213/9/hospital-policies-complementary-medicine-cross-sectional-survey-australian" target="_blank">10.5694/mja2.50731</a>

Australian researchers are calling for stronger leadership from peak bodies, such as the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, and the Council of Australian Therapeutic Advisory Groups, to encourage Australian cancer services and hospitals to update or review their complementary policies following the results of a survey of Australian public and private hospitals.

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