Toward Systemic Governance of Cancer Treatment as a System of Systems

Cancer is a major challenge for healthcare. A cancer diagnosis and treatment journey will be undertaken by many people during their lifetime. There are several different approaches to cancer treatment and there is often no one universally accepted opinion about the best treatment for any given diagnosis. This paper presents a system of systems view of cancer patient treatment and how governance can be improved by this approach. Traditionally, the views of different stakeholder groups within cancer patient care have not been combined. In keeping with current trends towards reducing fragmentation and lack of continuity, the systemic approach brings many benefits in giving a holistic and integrated representation, which can lead to a greater understanding of the problem space and ultimately inform policy makers to implement more effective and efficient policies.