Provincial Pediatric Oncology Satellite Program
Children with cancer and their families are often required to travel great distances to get to the hospitals which provide the children with their cancer care. In order to minimize the disruption on the lives of these children and families, POGO created the Provincial Pediatric Oncology Satellite Program, which transfers aspects of the child’s care to community hospitals closer to their homes. This creates the additional benefit of enabling the tertiary centres to increase their capacity to provide more complex treatment and/or monitoring in the tertiary setting.
POGO carefully selects the Satellite sites, (click here for locations), develops and updates operational standards and guidelines, provides frequent educational opportunities for staff, evaluates the satellite centres on an ongoing basis to ensure that that care in the Satellite centres is not only equitable, but equivalent to the care provided in the larger tertiary centres.
2010 Satellite Shared Care Education Day
POGO hosted a Pediatric Oncology Shared Care Education Day that has been initiated by The Hospital for Sick Children. This education day is targeted toward paediatricians and nurses who partner with The Hospital for Sick Children as part of POGO’s Provincial Pediatric Oncology Satellite Program.
The day provided opportunities for tertiary and satellite centre staff to network, to discuss common clinical issues and challenges and to contribute to the identification of future educational opportunities and priorities.
Topics addressed included: Clinical management of fever and neutropenia, parenteral nutrition support, pain management, and ALL (acute lymphocytic leukemia) protocols and dose adjustment during the maintenance phase of therapy for ALL.
