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POGO > Blog > childhood cancer care plan
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Tag: childhood cancer care plan


Premier Ford and Minister Jones join POGO to launch new roadmap to strengthen Ontario’s world-class childhood cancer care system

Posted on September 23, 2024 by admin

Ontario’s new five-year Childhood Cancer Care Plan, produced by the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) and its partners, builds on strong, province-wide coordination to deliver wrap-around care and support for children, youth, survivors and families at every step of the childhood cancer journey.

September 23, 2024, Toronto, ON – Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Health Sylvia Jones recently joined POGO to launch the Childhood Cancer Care Plan: A Roadmap for Ontario 2024-2029. Published by POGO and its partners, the Plan leverages strong collaboration and coordination across the province to ensure wrap-around care and support for children and youth with cancer, survivors and families at every step of the childhood cancer journey.  With support from the Government of Ontario, this new roadmap will continue to strengthen the province’s world-class childhood cancer system.

“Unfortunately, too many families here in Ontario are faced with the harsh reality of childhood cancers,” says Premier Doug Ford. “It’s a terrible disease that impacts not just the children, but their entire family. We’re incredibly grateful for the outstanding work that POGO does to support these families, ensuring they have access to the care they need, when and where they need it.”

“We thank POGO for your dedication, for your leadership and collaboration, for everything you do to support children and their families facing a cancer diagnosis,” says Health Minister Sylvia Jones. “I look forward to our continued work to ensure families have access to the best possible treatment and care throughout their journey.”

POGO works to ensure that everyone affected by childhood cancer has access to the best care and support. Informed by diverse voices from across the childhood cancer community, the Plan has priorities which focus on bringing care closer to home, ensuring survivor well-being, harnessing data, improving access to drugs and therapies, and enhancing the availability of mental health and financial supports for families.

Sam Taylor’s daughter, Ellie, was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a soft tissue cancer, at age 10.  “Shortly after Ellie’s diagnosis, we were connected with a POGO Interlink Nurse, an invaluable resource who guided us through the hospital system and helped us understand the unfamiliar world of childhood cancer,” says Sam Taylor. “Through her visits to our home and Ellie’s school, we knew we were in good hands. And when the time was right, the nurse helped us with the transition to care closer to home at the POGO Satellite Clinic at our local community hospital. This meant more time for Ellie with her friends and brother and a lot less time on the road. The POGO Satellite quickly became a second home for our family—an inviting place with an incredible staff where Ellie felt safe and relaxed, and where we, as her parents, felt reassured that she was receiving the best possible care.”

“Ontario’s childhood cancer care system is considered one of the best in the world, and we have the opportunity to make it even better by addressing current challenges and thinking ahead to navigate future demands,” says James Scongack, Chair of the POGO Board of Directors. “On behalf of POGO and our partners, I want to thank the Government of Ontario for its support, and its commitment to improving the lives of thousands of kids and families across Ontario dealing with this devastating disease.”

“There is exceptional pride in the quality and accessibility of Ontario’s childhood cancer care system. This is made possible by a shared vision of excellence across our incredible community,” says Lauren Ettin, Chief Executive Officer of POGO. “Working together, we can continue building on our collective success, so that children and youth with cancer, survivors and families can count on having the treatments, resources and supports they need, now – and for life.”

Download and share the Childhood Cancer Care Plan: A Roadmap for Ontario 2024-2029.

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About Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO)

Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) works to ensure that everyone affected by childhood cancer has access to the best care and support. We partner to achieve an excellent childhood cancer care system for children, youth, survivors, and their families and healthcare teams, in Ontario and beyond. POGO champions childhood cancer care, and as the collective voice of this community, is the official advisor to Ontario’s Ministry of Health on children’s cancer control and treatment. POGO is a non-profit organization with charitable status, here for kids with cancer, for now, for life.

Media Contact
Jacqui DeBique
Senior Manager, Communications
Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO)
416-592-1232 ext. 266

Posted in In the News | Tagged Cancer Plan, childhood cancer care plan, Doug Ford, Government of Ontario, press release, Southlake Regional Health Centre

POGO CEO Reflects on The Childhood Cancer Care Plan One Year After Launch

Posted on September 18, 2019 by admin

Jill Ross, POGO CEO

Q. Looking back on the past year, which accomplishments stand out for you?

The Childhood Cancer Care Plan was developed by over 200 clinical experts, providing care in clinics and at the bedside day in and day out, as well as parents and survivors, system planners and administrators. It has been wonderful to see many of these same individuals along with new participants readily volunteering their time, expertise and experiences to committees and activities that will drive action on the Plan’s goals.

That said, two other items that particularly stand out, are the launch of the newest POGO Satellite Clinic at Peterborough Regional Heath Centre in fall 2018, bringing care closer to home for patients and their families in that part of the province, and the publication of the latest, high-quality Ontario data in Childhood Cancer in Ontario 1986–2015: A Surveillance Report.

Q. The Plan identifies the need for Champions. Describe how Champions have come on board to help implement the Plan.

The Childhood Cancer Care Plan is a system plan. In addition to POGO, it will take the collaborative efforts of survivors, patients and families, clinical care providers of all types, government, donors and others to achieve its goals. An excellent example of this collaboration is POGO’s work on the Plan’s strategic objective to “promote effective and appropriate care for adolescents and young adults (AYA) treated in all settings.” Adolescents and young adults have unique care needs that require us to bring the best from the childhood and adult cancer care systems.

This year, Champions from across the province—clinical specialists from the POGO network and from Cancer Care Ontario’s adult cancer programs, and survivors of AYA cancer, with the support of the Ministry of Health—have joined forces to identify actions that can be taken to improve care.

Q. Specialized donor-funded support for families, research and survivors is a key driver of the Plan’s success. How has the contribution of donors contributed to moving the goals of the Plan forward?

One of the Plan’s five major goals is to optimize the physical health and emotional well-being of survivors of childhood cancer. Survivors have told us that they are in need of practical and informational resources to help them cope with life after a diagnosis of childhood cancer. With the generous support of an anonymous donor to launch a new initiative and continued funding from The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, POGO has been able to enhance our counselling service for adolescent survivors facing challenges completing school and finding work by introducing the Survivor to Survivor (S2S) Network. With the S2S Network, survivors gain practical skills, build their confidence and connect with others, as they create and deliver informational workshops on key issues for fellow survivors. Feedback from participants so far has been outstanding.

Check out S2S workshop topics and hear from
S2S facilitators about their experience

Donors to POGO also support important research aligned with the Plan’s goals. 

Q. This is a provincial plan intended to deliver the best possible care for the best possible outcomes for families, young people with cancer, survivors. What tangible differences are already evident for this population?

The POGO network has been working effectively together to continuously improve the system since POGO created the first Provincial Pediatric Oncology Plan (the Plan’s former name) in the late 1980s. Ontario’s outcomes are among the best in the world. Overall survival from childhood cancer is at an all-time high of 86%.

For children facing a diagnosis of cancer, in alignment with the Plan’s goal of “equitable, appropriate and timely access to emerging and evolving oncology drugs, diagnostics and technologies,” POGO ensures pediatric cancer expertise informs new drug funding policies and continues to lead the process to enable access to the latest collaborative clinical research studies for Ontario’s children facing cancer. POGO’s Therapeutic and Technology Advisory Committee of experts from across the province is now in place to continually scan the new science for opportunities to enhance care in Ontario.

Work also continues to enhance long-term outcomes for survivors of childhood cancer. Most survivors need lifelong monitoring to ensure that the late effects of their disease and its treatment are managed in such a way as to ensure the best quality of life possible. Survivors need reliable access to high quality primary and specialty care but, too often, access to primary care is a challenge. POGO’s Integrated Provincial AfterCare Steering Committee, composed of clinical and survivor representatives, aims to connect each survivor with a primary care provider in their home community and to ensure that primary care providers and the cancer specialists work effectively together to provide optimal monitoring.

Q. When we look ahead one year from now, what are some immediate priorities arising from the Plan?

While our clinical outcomes in Ontario are excellent, there are other important outcomes that need concerted attention. In particular, we hear from the clinical team and parents alike that the Plan’s goal about “ensuring integrated psychosocial care,” and objectives to “enhance supportive care” and “meet educational and information needs” are particularly challenging.

POGO’s guidelines program ensures that Ontario has excellent, internationally recognized, evidence-based supportive care guidelines, but more needs to be done to ensure that the recommendations in those guidelines can be put into day-to-day practice. The benefit of guidelines is real; a US children’s hospital, for example, saw a significant decrease in patient vomiting after implementing the POGO guideline for prevention of chemotherapy-induced vomiting. POGO is committed to working with our partners to facilitate evidence-based guideline uptake.

While we made an excellent start this past year, we also have more work to do to meet the Plan’s goal of ensuring “the right data are available and being used to drive an effective childhood cancer system.” We are working with hospital partners to give them the data they need to monitor quality and do local planning, and in turn, contribute to strong province-wide planning. We will also be updating the POGO Surveillance Report this year, and we are working with data partners to improve the information available about AYA cancer.

Most importantly, we look forward to strengthening existing partnerships and developing new ones with organizations that can help advance the Plan’s important goals for childhood cancer patients, families and survivors.

Posted in Misc | Tagged AYA, childhood cancer care plan, childhood cancer survivors, POGO Committees

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