ECCO XII Copenhagen - the European Oncology Nursing Society

NOEP: Ready to launch in September!The Nutrition in Oncology - Educational Program (NOEP) which wasdeveloped in co-operation with Nutricia, will be officially launched atthe ECCO 12 in Copenhagen. A satellite symposium will be held onWednesday 24th September 2003 from 17:30 to 19:00 hours in room18/19. The symposium will provide an opportunity to discuss the lackof awareness that the role of nutrition has in oncology, to presentresults of the needs analysis performed during the last 3rd SpringConvention in Venice (which served as a basis to build NOEP) and todiscuss the positive outcomes of a program test implementation thatwas performed in Czech Republic in June 2003.Disease-related malnutrition (DRM)in CancerThe NOEP has been developed by the EONS, in partnership withNutricia, between April 2002 and June 2003. Following thedevelopment of the program, two test implementations were carriedout in Czech Republic and The Netherlands. Nurses in both countriesgave very enthusiastic and positive oral feedback and the programwas evaluated in very positive light (global evaluation of NOEP:9.44/10 in Czech Republic). Initial remarks from Czech nursesindicated that little attention is currently given to nutrition inoncology and that they have a key role to play in that respect.NOEP was considered to be a multidisciplinary project and thereforean oncologist, a dietary nurse and a psychologist gave the workshoppresentations and shared their experiences. In terms of adapting theNOEP to meet individual country needs, the Czech Republicimplementation demonstrated that the translation needs a high levelof attention to ensure correct interpretation and is a key factor indetermining the success of the program. Speakers at the testimplementations took the opportunity to add extra slides or adaptcase studies that they judged to be useful and essential for thecomprehension of the program. The program was very demanding onthe nurses in terms of hours of concentration, and it was concludedthat dividing the program into two days would provide a betteropportunity for nurses to exchange ideas and benefit from informationpresented in the case studies.In the coming weeks, final adaptations will be made to the programbased on the results of the test implementations, and keeping inmind that NOEP must provide a solid and structured content. Theseimprovements will also give the flexibility to add or adapt a fewslides. The folder including the complete NOEP will be available atECCO 12 at the Nutricia stand (H-089).Spain and Belgium have already expressed their interest in launchingNOEP before the end of 2003. The next steps will be to implementNOEP across Europe. As NOEP is a partnership between the EONSand Nutricia, local implementation plans must be discussed betweenOncology nursing societies and Nutricia at a country level. Pleasefeel free to contact your local Nutricia office to discuss theimplementation of NOEP in your country. Preliminary meetings willbe arranged to discuss your expectations of NOEP and to construct adetailed action plan including deadlines for translations, organisationof workshops, numbers of workshops, participants to the workshopsetc. After submission of this action plan, Nutricia will fund the costsof the translation and the organisation costs agreed in advance.Evaluation of NOEP will be made in order to determine whether it ismeeting the expectations of nurses in terms of education, and tohelp improve the program through the development of new andinnovative ideas.The 4th Spring Convention of the EONS in April 2004 will provide anopportunity to discuss the NOEP implementation across Europe anddraw conclusions. If you wish to receive information regarding yourlocal Nutricia contact person, please contact Jan Foubert at:jan.foubert@skynet.be or François Convenant at:francois.convenant@nutricia.comThe European Journal of Oncology Nursing accepted forInclusion in the Medline and PubMed Abstracting andIndexing ServicesThe National Library of Medicine has accepted the European Journal of Oncology Nursing (EJON) for inclusion inthe Medline and PubMed abstracting and indexing services. The Editor, Alexander Molasiotis, and the Publisher,Health Sciences ELSEVIER, put together a detailed application to Medline earlier this year and have nowreceived notification that the application has been approved. Medline and PubMed are among the mostfrequently used abstracting and indexing services of the international medical community. The citation willprovide EJON authors with substantial additional international profile and coverage of their articles. All issues ofEJON from Volume 7 Number 1 onwards will be included.NEWSLETTER SPRING 2003 -9