An IWK Maritime Centre for Precision Medicine initiative has gotten the attention – and financial support – of the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS).
With CCS funding, Dr. Victor Martinez, Clinical Genomic Specialist and Lead of Data Analytics for the IWK Maritime Centre for Precision Medicine, is guiding a team in developing a first-of-its-kind platform to integrate data from children with cancer in the Maritimes, making it easier to access and providing a more well-rounded picture of the patient and their disease.
Children with cancer undergo many tests and scans to diagnose and analyze the disease and monitor their health both during and after treatments. In the Maritime provinces, this data is often split across different provincial and institutional systems, making it difficult for clinicians to access all the patient information. The new platform will take test results, medical records, and scan pictures and convert them into a shared format that can be easily accessed through an online hub.
“Remember connect the dots puzzles? At first, there’s only a vague image, but when you connect the dots, the full picture appears,” says Dr. Martinez. “That's our project's goal: connecting the medical dots of each child's journey – clinical data, genes, family history, environment – to see their full health story.”
The project is one of nine across the country that will benefit from the $2 million CCS investment. The CCS Data Transformation Grants are part of the country’s first cancer data strategy that focuses on cancer-specific data challenges and are expected to lead to improved cancer care and outcomes for all people in Canada.
For Dr. Martinez – that’s what his work is all about.
“With this complete picture, we aim to provide personalized care that makes a real difference for these brave kids and their families.”