Where We Come From

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THE HISTORY OF CAREPATH NAVIGATION
 

In 2002, Dr. Denny De Petrillo, then a surgical oncologist at Princess Margaret Hospital founded CAREpath Inc., an Ontario based virtual navigation system to provide information and support for patients who were diagnosed with cancer as they traversed the cancer care journey in the formal system in their province. Its virtual navigation system was the first of its kind and consisted of experienced oncology nurses providing over the phone counselling to patients and their families, backed up by site specific oncologists.

The need for such a system evolved as cancer centres in Canada, although of high quality, could not allocate the needed time for such patient support due to high patient volumes. CAREpath Inc. operated as an employee benefit program from companies such as the Ontario Teachers Insurance Program and national banks, covering almost 1,000,000 lives across Canada.

The goal was to reduce absenteeism and presenteeism in employees by arming them with information about their cancer, empowering them to be in control of the situation, educating them with ‘lunch and learns’ in the workplace, and enabling their colleagues to understand the challenges. CAREpath’s success was published in two peer-review publications. The key to CAREpath’s success was the bond which developed between the nurse, the patient and the family, empowering them to be part of the process - an important contributor to their own treatment program. In 2016, CAREpath Inc. was sold to Bayshore Health and the original template modified and expanded to include other disease sites.