Developing age-appropriate care in Canada for adolescents and young adults
September 25, 2018
Learn more about the unique aspects of caring for young people with cancer as well as the Partnership’s related work
In this September 2018 article in Oncology News from Australia, Dr. Paul Grundy talks about the unique needs of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients, and the Partnership’s work to improve their care.
The unique needs are related to these patients’ age, stage of life and developmental maturity. Also, deficiencies in their cancer care can have long-term, adverse effects both physically and socially, while adding to the healthcare systems’ burden as well as an overall loss of productivity.
Only a handful of Canadian programs are designed to meet the age-specific needs. The Partnership created the Adolescent and Young Adult National Network (AYANN) to advance the quality of care for young people with cancer. The Network serves as a Canada-wide forum, made up of leaders who include patient and family advisors, ministries, cancer agencies, clinicians, health system leaders and community organizations.
The AYANN’s goals are:
- To contribute to patients’ and families’ knowledge, communication and awareness of information for making informed choices
- To engage and support patients and families in the decision-making processes
- To identify gaps and key opportunities for improving the delivery of AYA programs in Canada – and to develop strategies to address those gaps
- To create a set of national outcome-performance indicators and benchmarks
Read the full article Development of age-appropriate care for AYA with cancer in Canada.