» POGONIS database

POGO Childhood Cancer Data Informs New Cancer Statistics Reports

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Claire Slaughter

This year, POGO data will inform three Canadian cancer statistics reports—an important milestone in POGO’s efforts to monitor and publicly report on the impact of childhood cancer in Ontario, in alignment with one of the five goals of our Childhood Cancer Care Plan 2018-2023.

Later in September, for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, POGO will release Childhood Cancer in Ontario: The 2020 POGO Surveillance Report, an update of our comprehensive and detailed provincial childhood cancer surveillance statistics. This report continues to confirm that Ontario’s childhood cancer survival rates are among the highest in the world and that all types of childhood cancer are rare (less than 6 per 100,000 children per year). It also provides information about the number of Ontarians each year who were diagnosed with cancer as children (prevalence). In addition to updating the data and trends, new details about cancer subtypes and age groups have been added.

August 2020 marked the first-ever inclusion of childhood cancer statistics, generated based on analyses by POGO from data in POGONIS (POGO’s childhood cancer database), in the Ontario Cancer Statistics report, which was released by Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario). This report provides a comprehensive summary of the burden of cancer in Ontario residents of all ages and helps to answer vital questions such as: What types of cancer occur in children in Ontario as compared to adults? How does childhood cancer, mortality and survival compare to adult cancers?

In addition, POGO continues to collaborate with the Public Health Agency of Canada by providing timely and high-quality childhood cancer data from POGONIS to populate the Canadian childhood cancer surveillance database, Cancer in Young People in Canada (CYP-C). This ensures that the Ontario childhood cancer population data is included in national reports, such as the CYP-C Data Tool, to yield key information, such as how childhood cancer incidence in Ontario compares with other provinces/territories and Canada overall.

POGO ensures that the latest, high-quality childhood cancer data from POGONIS is available to generate childhood cancer statistics for use by healthcare professionals, researchers, system and program planners, and policy- and decision-makers to help drive an effective childhood cancer care system. By working in partnership with organizations like Ontario Health (Cancer Care Ontario) and the Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as with the hospitals that treat children with cancer in Ontario, to monitor and report on the burden of childhood cancer in the province, POGO aims to achieve the best childhood cancer care system for children, youth, their families and survivors in Ontario and beyond.

We hope you find these reports to be helpful references in your efforts to champion childhood cancer care!

POGO Celebrates Pediatric Oncology Nursing Excellence with Bruna DiMonte

Posted on April 3, 2018 by admin

Bruna DiMonte, POGO Senior Database Administrator and Privacy Officer, and nurse at The Hospital for Sick Children

“Excellence in oncology nursing is about demonstrating a high level of compassion, empathy and pediatric oncology specialty expertise in caring for kids with cancer and their families. Nurses incorporate evidence-based literature and research in our clinical practice, and we are excellent resources to allied health teams and the field of pediatric oncology. We advocate for resources to meet the challenging needs of kids with cancer, families, pediatric oncology nursing and the childhood cancer care system.”

Data Drives Practice
These days, my work at SickKids overlaps with my data management role at POGO. In both organizations, I lead teams responsible for capturing data in our POGONIS database. This data—clinical information that includes specifics about children’s diagnosis, treatment, complications and long-term outcomes—is used by POGO and our system partners for cancer surveillance, research, decision-making, system and program planning and evaluation, and policy advice.

Her Passion for Her Patients and Work as a Pediatric Oncology Nurse
My early career was devoted to working on the frontlines and in doing so, I always strived to provide compassionate care to kids with cancer. While it’s hard to choose, I would say that one of the most rewarding things was finding time in my day to play with a child and distract them from the complex cancer treatment I still had to provide. Every day brought a new set of challenges and however a child’s story played out, my only hope was that I had made a positive difference in their life and their family’s.

POGO Values Pediatric Oncology Nurses
I have had the pleasure of helping POGO support pediatric oncology nurses in making valuable contributions to the pediatric oncology community. I am the staff representative on the POGO Nursing Committee and have worked with Committee members on such special projects as POGO guidance documents about telephone practices (telepractice) and the safe handling of antineoplastic agents. The Committee has also had the opportunity to contribute to publications, abstracts, presentations at conferences of health organizations like the Association of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses (APHON), The International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP), and POGO education events like AfterCare Education Day, the Annual Multidisciplinary Symposium on Childhood Cancer and Nursing Pre-Symposia education events. Through POGO, pediatric oncology nurses also have the opportunity to advocate on a policy level, and in the past actively supported POGO’s recommendation of the nurse coordinator position and acquisition of the Interlink Nursing program. POGO also proactively seeks preceptorships with nursing student placements at the POGO office and with the POGO Interlink Nurses at their hospitals.

Other Career Achievements of which Bruna is Most Proud
This is another difficult question as I have had many wonderful opportunities to support novice pediatric oncology nurses, as well as data managers and researchers. I hope I have helped empower others to provide excellent clinical care. And, in collaborating with researchers using POGONIS data for epidemiological research and data analysis, I hope I have adequately supported their policy planning and program development goals for pediatric oncology, and inspired them to collect accurate provincial population data for these needs.

Bruna DiMonte, RN, BScN, has been a pediatric nurse for 36 years and has spent 28 of those working double duty at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto and with POGO as the Senior Database Administrator and Privacy Officer

The Power of Population-based Research

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Kelly Zorzi

In 1995, POGO’s childhood cancer database (POGONIS) transformed into a fully networked information system. This has allowed us to observe the population, know if certain cancers are increasing in incidence, monitor treatment, follow survival, and understand how these things change over time. In 2004, POGO was designated one of just eight 45.1 entities under Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act, allowing POGO to collect, use and disclose personal health information, including the ability to link its database to other administrative databases, plan for Ontario’s pediatric oncology system and launch invaluable research.

There are multiple study designs, but when we talk about research in medicine, many people think about randomized clinical trials. This type of research can be a very powerful tool when it comes to understanding how X affects Y in a highly selected subset of the population. Drug testing is a perfect example of this. Not every child is eligible for the clinical trial, but the hope is that what we learn from this unique subset we’ll be able to extrapolate to everybody. Of course this is not always the case with clinical trials.

POGO’s database allows us to perform what is called population-based research. This type of study design looks at a population as a whole, in our case all children with cancer in Ontario, and examines what the experience is for everybody. It can help answer questions where outcomes are small and need to be studied on a large scale to understand the answers. Questions like:

For me, population-based research is exciting because it can be just as transformative as biomedical research. The data we have collected in POGONIS, combined with the fact that we can link it to other datasets that are already being collected (Statistics Canada for example), can produce very rich and detailed information that would otherwise be too expensive and/or too labour intensive to collect. It is a very efficient way to utilize all the data that is out there and actually answer questions that can translate more immediately into improved care and better outcomes for the individuals we serve: patients, families and survivors of childhood cancer.

– Dr. Jason Pole

WATCH DR. POLE DESCRIBE HIS RESEARCH: The Power of Population-based Research
READ MORE STORIES LIKE THIS ONE in the 2016 Community Impact Report

Dr. Jason Pole is Senior Scientist with the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario and is an Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and an Adjunct Scientist with The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto. Dr. Pole has a background in epidemiology and health services research with an emphasis in the use of administrative data and complex survey instruments.

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Tag: POGONIS database

POGO Childhood Cancer Data Informs New Cancer Statistics Reports

POGO Celebrates Pediatric Oncology Nursing Excellence with Bruna DiMonte

The Power of Population-based Research