NOKA 'Navigating Oncology Map Antwerp'
Authors: Léonard Silke 
Published: January 2024

NOKA¹ is an application that focuses on providing reliable information or references and navigating the patient and their representatives throughout the landscape of well-being and healthcare services or providers in Antwerp such as physiotherapists, hairdressers, walk-in houses, … The aim of this application is to enhance selfcare management among oncology patients and their representatives by organizing the fragmented information from different, sometimes difficult to reach, information platforms into one application. The original target group are patients and their representatives, who are receiving an oncology treatment in a day hospital and are therefore at home for the rest of their treatment. However, the information given by NOKA can be serviceable for all oncology patients and their representatives, furthermore professional caregivers can benefit from the use of NOKA as well. 

PTOZA² assisted us in the realisation of this project. They conducted a survey aimed to define the ‘bottlenecks’ of information throughout the trajectory of an oncology patient’s treatment. The results of their survey implied that information is sparse once the treatment has started and difficult to reach when patients are not in the hospital. These findings correspond with the experience of our research-team, who are actively working with oncology patients, receiving numerous questions about the subject, leading to the fundamentals in starting this project.  

To address these issues, AP University assigned 7 researchers to implement NOKA in order to provide digital information and care at home. The research-team conducted several semi-structured interviews with patients and caregivers to provide useful input to create NOKA up to the needs of the users. The target group was reached through several day care hospitals in Antwerp: University Hospital Antwerp, GZA hospitals and ZNA hospitals. The results of these interviews provided both the design and content of the NOKA-application. 

The user-friendliness and content of the NOKA-application is regularly reviewed by an audience familiar with the use of the NOKA-app. These people are mostly patients and their surroundings who review the app through a digital survey available on the NOKA-application, or face to face when preferred. NOKA aims to contribute to the needs of oncology patients and their representatives by interacting continuously with them and ensuring their involvement throughout the entire project. 

Further surveys are imperative to improve our understanding of the success of NOKA. When the application is broadly used in Antwerp and well received by our target group, an expansion of the provided information and (non)-professional caregivers will be advised. This could result in enhanced selfcare throughout Belgium and perhaps not only in oncology but in other chronic illnesses as well.

 

Digital access has become increasingly important over the years all over the world. This project could contribute to awareness and shows the importance of a valuable information flow for oncology patients and their representatives. The availability of information, as provided in NOKA, can be serviceable for professional caregivers as well, suggesting it is generally beneficial for different regions and countries.

¹Navigerende Oncologische Kaart Antwerpen

²Platform Transmurale Oncologische Zorg Antwerpen