THUNDER BAY -- Providing the best cancer care is dependent on partnerships, says the president of Cancer Care Ontario.
CCO president and CEO Michael Sherar toured the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre Thursday as part of a province-wide tour of regional cancer centres.
“It’s because of our efforts to improve the cancer system in Ontario and also now working to improve the care of patients with chronic kidney disease,” Sherar said.
“The success of those efforts is absolutely dependent on partnerships with providers, patients, families, foundations, volunteers right across the province to make sure we can implement and measure that we’re providing the highest quality care in this province to the citizens,” he added.
Cancer Care Ontario measures the quality of care provided in regional centres from prevention and diagnosis through to survivorship and end of life care, if necessary. Sherar said Northwestern Ontario traditionally has always done well with the quality of care it provides.
“Through the leadership of the team here, I think we’re continuing to improve the quality of care,” he said.
Vice-president of Cancer Care Ontario Mark Henderson said on Thursday they would be discussing their plan to manage cancer services over the next five years.
Although Regional Cancer Care does well in the quality of care measurement, Henderson said they will be focusing on two specific areas in the coming year.
The first is patient satisfaction throughout their cancer treatment experience.
“It’s just not about high-tech machines and chemotherapy, but how the patient is managing psychologically and physically through this,” said Henderson.
“Chemotherapy can be very draining on persons. Radiation, while live-saving, can have a lot of side effects so we’re spending a lot of time on that this year.”
They will also be looking at the Ontario Breast Screening Program to ensure patients are being assessed properly and if further testing is needed, it’s done promptly and conveniently for patients, said Henderson.
