GLOBAL SUMMIT STRUCTURE
What to Expect at the 2010 Summit: Meeting Structure
Each day of the Global Summit on International Breast Health: Optimizing Healthcare Delivery will address different health care scenarios.
· Day 1 will address low-resource scenarios in breast delivery where fundamental delivery resources are commonly fractionated or incomplete. Multidisciplinary coordination to provide a framework for coordination, accurate diagnosis and basic or limited level early detection, diagnosis and multidisciplinary treatment will be emphasized. Human resource obstacles aggravating capacity limitations and inequity will be examined. Approaches to “brain-drain”, where in-country personnel leave country to take jobs in higher-income countries, will be considered. Current efforts of the BHGI Learning Laboratory in Ghana, West Africa will be highlighted.
· Day 2 will address middle-resource scenarios in breast healthcare delivery, where muliti-disciplinary treatment is more commonly available than in low-resource countries, but where breast cancer outcomes are hampered because patients typically present for initial diagnosis with advanced staged or metastatic disease. Practical early detection strategies will be considered, tailored to economic and geographic constraints, with special focus on public education, use of clinical resources to facilitate patient selection and triage, and cost-effective imaging and tissue sampling strategies. Special issues of Latin American countries will be highlighted in the special needs survey performed by SLACOM and published together with BHGI (Cancer, 113(8 suppl):2359-65, 2008).
· Day 3 will address problem-solving in healthcare delivery, going beyond the identification of financial or human resource constraints to consider how commonly encountered obstacles such as inadequate numbers of trained personnel, social obstacles that limit or prevent women’s participation in early detection programs, or economic situations that undermine capacity for delivery and access to care can be tackled in real-world applications. Patient navigation and triage approaches will be considered in the context of broader women’s issues such as cervical cancer prevention and reproductive health. The development of implementation science methodology will be specifically examined and explored.
Each morning sessions will begin with a breast cancer advocacy presentation followed by scientific presentations that highlight key issues in breast delivery. Speakers will present on successful pilot projects, from the design, anticipated outcomes and relevant actual outcomes, for programs in LMCs, using the BHGI stratified guidelines as a framework for identifying existing resources or programmatic gaps. Key process metrics will be considered to assist in the assessment of actual breast healthcare delivery outcomes. Program successes and failures will be analyzed for the purposes of understanding the key elements to promote improved outcomes through optimal delivery based upon real resources.
The afternoon session will be moderated by panel co-chairs, who will organize the written summaries of these presentations into consensus publications. Each afternoon will begin with either a keynote presentation or focused panel discussion, followed by an open panel discussion of the key topics also moderated by the panel co-chairs, will be directed at the discussion of delivery based upon guideline implementation, focusing on the learning points deemed most relevant to program execution in low and middle-income countries. The last hour of the panel meeting will include parallel workshops and poster presentations that will highlight existing programs being implemented in LMCs.