Sacyl wants at least 95% of children with cancer to be evaluated by a group of regional experts that guarantees quality and equity

The Regional Health Management wants to fight against cancer and for this it has proposed to redouble efforts to fine-tune diagnosis and follow-up in adult patients, as well as in children and adolescents. To do this, it has asked all hospitals to increase by at least 20 percent the cases of adults referred to the Autonomous Tumor Committee, as well as to ensure that 95 percent of diagnoses in children between the ages of two and 14 go through the Childhood and Adolescence Cancer Care Coordination Committee of Castilla y León, a group of regional experts so that they are treated under the latest scientific evidence and, furthermore, in a homogeneous manner, regardless of where they live.

The ultimate goal is to achieve greater quality and equity of care, in addition to the intervention of multidisciplinary professional teams, who are “trench doctors” who can make better decisions and approaches when faced with a tumor.

The body that was created at the end of 2019 and that was stopped by the blow of COVID-19. Its mission is to contribute to improving the quality of care in accordance with national and international criteria of quality, organization and management of care resources. In this way, the care of pediatric and adolescent cancer patients is guaranteed by a multidisciplinary team, in specialized oncohaematology units, and through a coordinated care network for all health areas.

The functions of the Committee include the analysis and definition of the clinical criteria for Sacyl’s action in pediatric oncology processes, including patient follow-up; care coordination for these processes between all Sacyl centers; the preparation and application of protocols that will integrate the clinical criteria for referral to pediatric oncohematology units and the possibility of requesting a second opinion from a reference center, service or unit of the National Health System, known as CSUR.

Get the best results

The Deputy Minister for Healthcare, Planning and Health Results and regional manager of Sacyl, Jesús García-Cruces, explains this to Ical, for whom advancing in the monitoring and early diagnosis of any oncological pathology is one of the premises of the system for this year. “It is one of the most important objectives within the hospital environment,” he says, and he specifies his commitment to insist that the cases reach the committee, since “it is the one that guides the process; it gives more strength to the decisions that are made, and improves the quality of patient care. It is the one that can best undertake the process and obtain the best results”.

This battle against cancer is an area objective, which also goes through Primary Care, where after two years of pandemic it is necessary to detect, but also prevent. “One of my objectives is that Planning and Public Health have a very close harmony, that it is not a toast to the sun. And we are going to be very incisive”, says García-Cruces.

Cut test times

For this reason, they want to continue working so that the screening programs reach the entire population and, in addition, set times to advance in the diagnosis. In the case of colorectal cancer screening, Sacyl sets a limit of two months from a positive test until the patient undergoes a colonoscopy. In the cervix, three months from a positive smear until the patient undergoes the necessary studies; and in breast cancer, no more than 40 days have passed between a positive mammogram and the ultrasound; and if the mammogram shows a malignant nodule, that the patient undergo a biopsy in less than 35 days.

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