Poster can be found at location 122.

Contact nurses in Swedish cancer care are meant to function as enablers of availability, continuity, safety, and patient participation. The goal is that everyone diagnosed with cancer should be offered the services of a contact nurse. The assignment includes assessment of care needs, supporting, informing, monitoring lead times, and assuring active care transitions. They are seen as facilitators of person-centered care and function as patient’s assigned health care professional. Previous research indicates that contact nurses’ organizational prerequisites to provide high quality care differ significantly. Their scope of, and prerequisites for work differ across settings. Departing from the notion that high quality outcomes for patients are dependent on high quality structures, the QOPCoN research group (Quality and Organizational Prerequisites of contact nurses) aims to investigate organizational prerequisites of contact nurses and their bearing on quality of care. The theoretical underpinnings are based on the Donabedian (2005) quality evaluation framework and the McCormac and McCane (2006) person-centered nursing framework. These scholars acknowledge that the care environment, the structure, has significant impact on quality of care, and the operationalization of person-centered nursing. In our session, we want to give an overview and background to contact nursing in Swedish cancer care from a person- centered care perspective. Furthermore, we want to demonstrate a newly developed indicator instrument that measures structural prerequisites for contact nurses. In a comprehensive and visually appealing manner, the tool can provide insights and guidance for leaders and practitioners alike. It can serve as a springboard for quality improvement efforts and enables comparison across cancer care settings and over time. Person-centered care is not achievable if health care professionals are not supported by suitable organizational and structural prerequisites. Our goal is to make this realm tangible and comprehensible in relation to the important role of contact nurses in Swedish cancer care.