OBJECTIVES: This is the first review to synthesize all available studies that examine the effect of patient-centered oncology care (PCOC) on reducing cancer patients’ adverse healthcare utilization, cost, and its effect on improving patient satisfaction and quality of care.

METHODS: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. The PRISMA framework guided the conduct of this study. We obtained papers via MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, EMBASE and Google Scholar. Quality appraisal was performed using Downs and Black’s quality checklist. Effect sizes of adverse healthcare utilization were computed using Cohen’s D RESULTS: A total of 327 studies were reviewed. Nine articles met eligibility criteria and were included into the final analysis. Most of studies appeared to implement the majority of six PCMH core attributes, plus three additional attributes that particularly addressed cancer patients’ needs, including triage pathways, standardized and evidence-based symptom management and support patient navigation. PCOC patients had lower utilization of inpatient care (d= -0.027, p= 0.049). Overall positive effect of PCOC on emergency department use was small and not significant (d=-0.023, p= 0.103). In terms of cost and quality of care, our findings showed an overall positive direction, but there were apparent limitations in study quality to perform a meta-analysis.

CONCLUSIONS: The adoption of PCOC is at an early stage. The results showed that it is possible to utilize patient-centered model to support best-practice of cancer care. Evidence shows that the PCOC model can improve healthcare utilization, cost and quality of care, but limited numbers of included articles and heterogeneity of those studies implied that more rigorous research is expected to further investigate the model’s effects.