Diagnosis cancer
Many people living with cancer across Canada continue to experience the lingering effects of several months of aggressive, albeit necessary, responses to the first wave of the pandemic. The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and partners across Canada are working tirelessly to restore cancer services affected by COVID-19 with new tools and innovative models of care that will address long-standing disparities in access. istock.com
Health care in a pandemic: Responding to the urgent need to innovate our approach to cancer
By Cynthia Morton, CEO, Canadian Partnership Against Cancer
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the face of health care in Canada. Anyone attempting to access health services since March has experienced this new reality. For those affected by cancer, non-urgent treatments and procedures were postponed, routine screening programs were halted, and additional supports for patients were no longer available in an effort to keep vulnerable people away from overstretched hospitals and other health-care settings.
In the early days of the pandemic, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (the Partnership), the organization I lead, recognized that our partners at provincial and territorial cancer programs and health ministries were facing new challenges. We also saw that people with cancer faced many unknowns related to their care. To help address these challenges, we provided immediate financial and technological supports to help our partners keep people with cancer – and their communities – safe and informed.
Fortunately, most cancer services are being restored, but people living with cancer across Canada continue to experience the lingering effects of several months of aggressive, albeit necessary, responses to the first wave of the pandemic by provincial and territorial health systems. New, more targeted approaches to managing the continuing waves of the pandemic are evolving or already in place.
To ensure the full restoration of cancer services, the Partnership and our partners – Health Canada, deputy ministers of health, provincial cancer agencies and other health system leaders – identified opportunities to innovate how these services are delivered. I am not referring to vague and idealistic notions that cancer care can be improved in the distant future. I am saying that partners have worked with us to identify real changes that can – and will – start now to bring tangible benefits to all people in Canada living with cancer.
Today, the Partnership is launching Innovating Against Cancer, a suite of initiatives that will support our partners across the country to restore and sustain cancer screening and clinical care, reduce the rates of cancer death, and drive faster innovation in how cancer services are delivered in every province and territory. We’re working to reduce in-person interactions with the health-care system – a critical component of safe care during a pandemic – and to accelerate the adoption of innovative care solutions, including virtual delivery of cancer services, at-home cancer screening, and expanding other home-based services for patients’ mental health, palliative care and other needs.
To achieve this, the Partnership is investing $24.5-million and supporting 20 partners in every province and territory to ensure sustainable access to world-class cancer screening services for underserviced populations. This builds on the more than $300-million previously invested with partners to support quality improvements, change initiatives and innovations across all aspects of cancer care since we began our work in 2007.
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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all aspects of health care has been far-reaching. The Partnership has dedicated much of our recent effort and resources to collaborating with partners across Canada to sustain cancer care at this time and act on opportunities to accelerate innovations, such as the adoption of at-home cancer screening or cancer-specific virtual care.” ”
Together, we are working tirelessly to restore cancer services affected by COVID-19 with new tools and innovative models of care that will address long-standing disparities in access. Canada is a world-class leader in cancer care thanks to the commitment of our cancer care partners. Together, we will ensure this remains true during and beyond the pandemic. Of great significance to the thousands of families affected by lung cancer, we are embarking on lung cancer screening across this country to detect lung cancer earlier, when it can be successfully treated, and connecting smokers to support systems to change their behaviours for longer lives. We are investing $5-million in lung cancer screening and creating pan-Canadian and international networks of experts to assist our cancer system partners. As in all of our funded work, this initiative will place a special focus on cancer systems working with First Nations, Inuit and Métis – to develop Peoples-specific approaches to prioritize the accessibility of lung cancer screening programs for First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities. Our new report – Lung Cancer and Equity – A Focus on Income & Geography – shows that people with lung cancer who have lower income are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage disease and less likely to receive curative surgery even when diagnosed with early-stage disease. It also describes the system-level changes needed to close these gaps.
Addressing these socio-economic gaps in all cancer diagnosis and care is a focus of the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control 2019-2029 (the Strategy) and all initiatives funded within the Strategy. The Partnership recently worked with 7,500 people and partner organizations from across Canada to craft this refreshed vision for cancer care, funded by the federal government since 2007. Major innovations are set out in the Strategy’s eight priorities, which now need to be adopted at an accelerated pace with both existing and new partners across the country. Canada is fortunate to have a federation of health systems dedicated to quality cancer care – willing even now to look ahead and work together to implement the priorities and actions of the Strategy. As our cancer and health-care systems restore services, we have this opportunity to bring real innovation and improvements to how cancer services are delivered to all people in Canada, so these services are never at risk again.
At the heart of the Strategy and Innovating Against Cancer is the need to improve equity of care and close the gaps faced by many populations in accessing timely
and effective cancer services. The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on inequities in access to cancer care and health services faced by many communities, notably First Nations, Inuit and Métis and those living in rural and remote parts of the country.
Only by acknowledging and overcoming systemic barriers in access to care and treatment and ensuring that underserviced populations are put front and centre with a shared priority of working with First Nations, Inuit and Métis, will we bring about the real change all people in Canada need and deserve. The Partnership and our partners are working with community leaders to co-develop solutions that will deliver innovative cancer services in a culturally appropriate way. A milestone has already been achieved as the Partnership is supporting the development and implementation of Indigenous cancer strategies in every province and territory.
As health systems across the country continue their response to COVID-19, we must leverage this unprecedented health-care transformation to change the way we approach cancer. With the Strategy as our guidepost, we are confident that, alongside our partners, we can bring real innovation and improvements to how cancer services are delivered. In the coming years through this collaborative effort, we can make lasting changes that will result in better treatment and post-treatment outcomes, improved patient experiences when receiving care, and improved sustainability in the cancer system.
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