Skip to main content

Brunswick Private attends international cancer rehabilitation summit

During November 2017, several of Healthe Care’s Hospital CEOs and Rehabilitation Physicians travelled to Dallas, Texas to participate in a four day Select Medical Cancer Rehabilitation Summit.

Dallas-Summit.jpg#asset:1649


Here, our Rehabilitation Specialists gained further insight into international models of oncology rehabilitation care, to develop our own oncology-specific rehabilitation programs at our Australian Healthe Care hospitals.

It further strengthens Healthe Care’s ongoing relationship with Select Medical via Brunswick Private Hospital's Dr Dennis Wong.

Select Medical is a for-profit organisation, and the largest rehabilitation provider in the USA. It operates 125 hospitals and more than 1,600 day facilities, in addition to ‘ReVital’ – the company’s dedicated oncology rehabilitation division.

Healthe Care attendees were:

  • Peter Cizzio (CEO Brunswick Private
  • Dr Dennis Wong (Brunswick Private)
  • Andrew Blyth (CEO South Eastern Private)
  • Amanda Jones (GM Westmead Private)
  • A/Prof Ian Baguley (Westmead Private)
  • Kathy Beverley (CEO Brisbane Waters Private)
  • Dr Michael Pollack (Brisbane Waters Private / Gosford Private)

The summit focused mainly on head and neck cancer, and included talks from a variety of international speakers including Physicians, Surgeons, Oncologists, Administrators and Allied Health professionals. Presentations afforded our Healthe Care team significant insight into the depth of oncology rehab, from both a clinical and administrative perspective. Our Doctors were thoroughly impressed by the summit, indicating significant 'take home' information to adopt in their clinical practices.

Event delegates also attended a dinner presentation discussing ‘International Models of Care’. Our very own Peter Cizzio, Brunswick Private CEO presented Healthe Care’s rehabilitation model along with an overview of the Australian health system. He was joined by speakers from the USA, Canada, Brazil and the Netherlands.

“Oncology rehabilitation is a rapidly growing area in Australia and across the world. As cancer treatments improve and survivorship rates improve, more people are living with cancer-related morbidity and seeking treatment of their symptoms.”

“Learning from Select Medical's and other international models, at Healthe Care we are now refining our own best practice, evidence-based oncology rehabilitation program to roll out at our hospitals in 2018”, says Peter.

Cancer in Australia: the statistics

  • Cancer is the leading cause of disease burden in Australia. 134,174 new cases are diagnosed every year, with breast cancer the most common and followed by colorectal cancer (AIHW, 2013)
  • For all cancers combined, the ‘five year survival rate’ has increased from 48 per cent in 1988, to 68 per cent in 2013 (AIHW, 2017):
    • people are living longer after cancer treatment, therefore the burden of disease and impact on quality of live is increasing
    • many radiation/chemotherapy side effects can have a delayed onset of 5-10 years post treatment
  • Only 0.50 per cent of cancer survivors have access to oncology-specific programs in Australia (Dennett, 2016)
  • There are ten times more cardiac rehabilitation services than oncology services, but comparable numbers of patients (Dennett, 2016)