Child Cancer It Tool Receives National Award

Child Cancer It Tool Receives National Award

LEAP-IT, a national online clinical tool designed to co-ordinate the long term assessment of young cancer survivors, has won a national award for IT excellence.

The national Paediatric Oncology Steering Group (POSG), led by Canterbury District Health Board Paediatric Oncologist Dr Michael Sullivan, developed the tool which won the Excellence in the Use of ICT in Health category at the 2007 Computerworld Excellence Awards in Auckland on Friday (27 July). The Late Effects Assessment Programme Information Technology tool took three years to develop and was implemented last December.

It is the second consecutive year a team led by Dr Sullivan has won the category. Last year, the award was won by the NZ TelePaediatrics Service and Canterbury DHB for the development of a videoconference-based palliative care solution for families, called H2H (Hospital-to-Home).

The LEAP-IT project was set up to support the development of the National Late Effects Assessment Programme, a clinical initiative designed to assess whether young cancer survivors have suffered any long term physical or psychological effects from their treatment. All clinical data is entered into a secure online tool, which is hosted on a dedicated server.

The aim is to ensure that all survivors are monitored regardless of where they live. Child cancer patients are only treated in Christchurch, Auckland or Wellington. Eventually all young cancer survivors will be given a personalised “health passport”, which will be a summary of all the treatment they have undergone over the years and can be carried into adulthood.

The online clinical tool was also designed to incorporate a National Children’s Cancer Registry. Later this year, the POSG team will be able to analyse the previous seven years of data, which will provide a detailed snapshot of all childhood cancer in New Zealand.

Dr Michael Sullivan says he and the rest of the team were delighted to receive the award, which recognised years of teamwork by clinicians across the country. “It has involved doctors, nursing specialists and psychologists from around the country. It genuinely has been a team effort, which has allowed us to achieve an extremely useful tool,” he says.

He says the tool could eventually be adapted to collect clinical information about adult cancer survivors.

ENDS

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