Ottawa, February 2023 – The Ottawa Hospital and Thrive Health have created a new digital solution that provides survivorship care to patients who have lived through breast cancer treatment.

Based on the Breast Cancer Survivorship Tool developed by Dr. Anna N. Wilkinson and Dr. Catherine E. Boutet, the digital solution Survivor Advisor offers an interactive, customizable application for individuals undergoing breast cancer survivorship care. Survivor Advisor is developed to tackle issues around care, with the added bonus of in-app education to empower patients. This includes a dynamic resource library that patients can access to learn more about their care with prompts to complete health promotion activities like cervical and colon cancer screening.

“Survivor Advisor is a new model of digital care which will help to overcome system capacity issues, improve concordance of care with recommended guidelines, and empower patients to self-manage their care,” says Dr. Anna N. Wilkinson, GP Oncologist and Family Physician at The Ottawa Hospital. “The Survivor Advisor offers an innovative way to improve communication between providers and patients, moving beyond paper-based care and faxes to bridge gaps between patients and cancer centers.”

The five-year survival rate for breast cancer (BCRA) has increased to 88 per cent, and with it there has been an increase in the volume of survivors needing care. With cancer centres across Canada caring for those with breast cancer, the responsibility for breast cancer survivorship care has fallen to primary care providers (PCPs), who receive minimal support. In addition, adherence to survivorship follow-up recommendations, such as receiving a yearly mammogram following breast cancer treatment is suboptimal. Together, these issues present a growing need for tools that help patients navigate and adhere to their survivorship care, and help primary care physicians allocate their time to patients in need.

When patients conclude their breast cancer treatment, details of their treatment are entered into Survivor Advisor, which generates a custom care plan for them. Their care plan includes reminders for evidence-based care like mammograms, bone mineral densities, mental health screens, lipid profiles and clinical assessments – as well as ongoing recurrence surveys, and screens for common side effects following treatment.

“Survivor Advisor is an innovative solution that enables survivors to be in control of their health journey,” says Dr. Mark Nazemi, Manager, Clinical Solutions & Innovation at Thrive Health. “Our solution helps with care coordination by making it easy for survivors to share assessment results with their care provider, manage appointments, and encourage health promotion and self-management.”

“Survivor Advisor is an excellent example of what can be achieved when healthcare collaborates with industry,” says Dr. Alan Forster, Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation and Quality Officer at The Ottawa Hospital. “At The Ottawa Hospital, we strive to foster and develop innovative ideas from our staff, physicians and researchers, but recognize we also need to look to companies who are on the cutting edge of digital health technology. Working together, we can tackle healthcare’s biggest challenges and achieve the best care for our patients.”

 Survivor Advisor is currently being piloted at The Ottawa Hospital under the direction of Dr. Anna N. Wilkinson, and is now available to be piloted at other institutions who are looking to leverage technology to support cancer survivor patients. To learn more about trialing Survivor Advisor at your clinic or hospital, please contact mark.nazemi@thrive.health.

About The Ottawa Hospital:

The Ottawa Hospital is one of Canada’s top learning and research hospitals, guided by a vision to provide world-class and compassionate care that everyone would want for their loved ones. The multi-campus hospital, affiliated with the University of Ottawa, is home to the Regional Trauma Centre and Cancer Centre, and to discoveries that are adopted globally.

Backed by generous support from the community, the hospital is focused on reshaping the future of healthcare to improve the health for a diverse population of patients from Eastern Ontario, Western Quebec and Nunavut.

For more information about The Ottawa Hospital, visit OttawaHospital.on.ca.

About Thrive Health:

Thrive Health is a digital healthcare platform company, founded in 2016 with a mission to make healthcare work better for everyone. The company provides an interactive patient engagement solution that enables healthcare providers to build custom clinical workflows, and offers patients enhanced access to their health data. Thrive Health’s innovative technology is designed to put patients at the center of their care, and empower data-driven clinical decisions. Thrive Heath’s platform meets or exceeds FIPAA, HIPAA, PIPEDA, and NIST requirements, is Sas 70 Type II compliant, and is ISO 27001 certified. The company is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, and operates across Canada and the United States.