Parboosingh J, Inhaber S; International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Meeting.

Annu Meet Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Meet. 1996; 12: 47.

Disease Prevention Division, Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Recommendations for the organization of cervical cancer screening programs have existed in Canada since the early 1970s. However, despite many attempts to encourage the development of provincially based organized screening programs, no province has a fully comprehensive program in 1995 and deaths from this preventable cancer still occur. In an attempt to rectify this situation, a National Work was held in Febuary 1995; current status of cervical cancer screening in the provinces and the barriers to implementation of comprehensive programs were identified by the key provincial stakeholders. Noted barriers included a lack of understanding of how such programs would operate within the current provincial health care systems, a lack of understanding of the cost implications for program development and implementation, the absence of information systems, a legislative and regulatory environment unsupportive of information gathering, and a lack of consensus over the incorporation of new technologies for processing cervical smears. Preliminary action plans to achieve such programs were developed or affirmed using the recommendations of an earlier National Workshop on Screening for Cancer of the Cervix held in 1989. One of the major impediments to progress is not the lack of scientific evidence on the effectiveness of cervical cancer screening, but a lack of understanding of how to integrate the different components within a "system for cervical cancer screening". Health Canada is now actively facilitating the work of the provinces in the development of coordinated approaches to the design, development and implementation of coprehensive screening programs for cancer of the cervix and that of the professional organizations responsible for the quality of care provided within such a program.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• Breast Neoplasms
• Canada
• Carcinoma in Situ
• Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia
• Female
• Humans
• Mass Screening
• Neoplasms
• Precancerous Conditions
• Program Development
• Tumor Virus Infections
• Uterine Cervical Neoplasms
• Vaginal Smears
• diagnosis
• hsrmtgs

Other ID:

• HTX/97607312

UI: 102222624

From Meeting Abstracts