The Cancer Risk Management Model
April 2012 marks the beginning of the Partnership’s second five-year mandate and the next phase of implementing Canada’s national cancer strategy. The priorities and initiatives for the next five years are outlined in our 2012-2017 strategic plan, Sustaining Action Toward a Shared Vision. Our website will soon be updated to reflect the activities supporting the strategic plan. The information below reflects the priorities and accomplishments of our work between 2007 and 2012.
Evaluating and improving cancer control with information
Housed on cancerview.ca, the Cancer Risk Management Model is a web-enabled platform that allows health planners to compare the projected results of potential healthcare interventions such as comparing a dollar invested in a new cancer therapy or other cancer control interventions such as screening. It will also help to measure the long-term impacts of the coordinated efforts of Canada’s cancer control Strategy. By developing customized projections that illustrate the costs and benefits of these investments, this online platform can provide the cancer control community and the health system with invaluable insight into how to most effectively allocate scarce health-care dollars and improve cancer outcomes.
Working with Statistics Canada, the Partnership is leading development of the Cancer Risk Management Model platform as part of its mandate to drive system-wide improvements through the synthesis and dissemination of best-available information. This flexible online platform allows users to model potential health and economic outcomes of several interventions under “what if” scenarios and to explore the broad impacts of cancer investments at national, provincial or territorial levels as new interventions are introduced.
The Cancer Risk Management Model platform aims to establish a sound basis for decision making and ongoing system-wide improvements to cancer control in Canada.
Progress to date
By bringing together provincial and territorial policy researchers and analysts to the Cancer Risk Management platform, this initiative is building potential to enhance decision-making towards reducing the burden of cancer.
- In January 2010, the Cancer Risk Management Model platform was launched. During its initial phase, planners and policy-makers used the platform to assess outcomes in lung and colorectal cancers. In addition, the platform was introduced at this time to potential users in policy development, analytics and research through an online seminar and a series of regional training workshops.
- In March 2010, more than 100 cancer program managers, policy planners, analysts and health economists from cancer agencies and programs, along with provincial and territorial health ministries, attended regional training workshops in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax.
- In August 2010, the Cancer Risk Management Initiative was showcased at a session, chaired by the Partnership, at the Union for International Cancer Control’s 2010 World Cancer Congress in Shenzhen, China. The session, Supporting System Leaders in Managing the Impact and Risk that Cancer Represents to Populations, highlighted the methods and tools developed by Canada, Finland and the United States to forecast the impact of cancer control programs.
- In November 2010, output generated by the platform was used to inform the effect of smoking interventions on lung cancer, as shown in Lung Cancer in Canada: A Supplemental System Performance Report.
- In February 2011, the platform was used to inform the future cost of cancer in the discussion paper on pan-Canadian cancer control priorities for 2012-2017, The Future of Cancer Control in Canada.
- In September 2011, advanced training workshops were held in Toronto and Vancouver.
- In the fall of 2011, the Cancer Risk Management Model was put to use in the real-world cancer control policy questions concerning colorectal cancer screening and chemotherapy of lung cancer by four multi-disciplinary groups involving medical oncologists, cancer economic researchers and decision-makers.
- In November 2011, the initiative was showcased at a session at the 4th International Cancer Control Congress in Seoul, Korea.
- In 2011, and in response to the evidence of lung cancer screening with lose-dose CT scan, the model was used to project population-based impacts if a lung cancer screening program was implemented in Canada.
- The platform continues to be disseminated to stakeholders as enhancements are made to the initial models. Development of a cervical cancer model is underway and development of a model for breast cancer is planned in 2012. These new models will widen the platform’s use and impact in supporting cancer-related investment decisions.
