This indicator measures the percentage of patients who met the access targets from when a patient and surgeon decide to proceed with cancer surgery until when the actual procedure is completed. A higher percentage is better.

Public reporting

Timely

Process

The intent of the data collection is to have the wait time for a patient undergoing an operation where cancer is a real possibility. In some cases, it is only after surgery that a negative result is known. Some reported wait time data for cancer surgery includes data for surgeries where there are benign or non Non-cancerous tumours.The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is working with the surgical community to have more accurate reporting of surgical treatment data involving “intentional” and “patient unavailable” wait times either by: Subtracting the "patient unavailable dates" from the overall wait time. Entering the “decision to treat date” as the date when the patient is first recovered from treatment. For detailed limitations, see: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/waittimes/surgery/data.aspx#5 Many cancer surgery procedures are the same as the procedures for benign (non-cancerous) conditions, and the same doctors perform both cancer surgery and non-cancer surgery. As a result, almost every hospital in Ontario performs at least a few cancer surgeries every year. However, the hospitals with smaller numbers of cancer procedures may not have a formal cancer program or specialize in cancer surgery. A number of these smaller hospitals do not report their wait time data to WTIS. Text adapted from the Comprehensiveness of Cancer Surgery Reporting: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/waittimes/surgery/data.aspx#4

If patient unavailable dates fall outside the Decision to Treat Date up to Procedure Date, the patient unavailable dates are not deducted from the patient's wait days. These are considered data entry errors.

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