REGIONAL INITIATIVES
142 CANCER CONTROL 2014
will have more oncologists, oncology nurses and allied health
care workers but this will still fall short of actual need.
With the exception of major centres such as TMC and AIIMS
where high quality care is provided, the vast majority of cancer
patients will continue to be managed by non-oncology doctors
and nurses who deal with other diseases as well. A system of
regional cancer centres was begun several years ago with a
"hub and spoke" model, relating smaller hospitals to regional
cancer centres with a plan to link providers via infrastructure
and online expert systems. At the ICC, the OERC-India team
learned that the majority of cancers in the Indian population
are detected and diagnosed in late stages when incurable and
that a major professional and public educational effort should
be focused on screening and early detection so that tumours
can be diagnosed in early stages when they are potentially
curable.
With the rapid progress in cancer care resulting from
advances in molecular biology, nanotechnology and
information infrastructure, new data is generated at amazing
speed, which makes for a challenging task for health care
professionals to stay current in their knowledge and skills.
This is even more difficult for those providers who are
generalists. India should be able to leverage its advanced
information technology system to provide access
to continuously updated information through all available
devices, such as smart phones, tablets and
computers. To help address this challenge, OERC-India
(oercindia.merlot.org) has been created with potential
connectivity to all IT platforms. This web portal is a free online
repository of educational resources now available through
California State University's MERLOT (Multimedia
Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching). Its
principal goals are to assist Indian health care professionals to
gain basic oncology information from reliable sources and to
remain current in their respective fields of cancer care. OERC-
India has been endorsed by India's thought leaders in clinical
oncology and oncology nursing. OERC-India will also have
resources to be used for the education of patients, families
and the lay public. When the site for India's general public is
fully developed, it is expected to be available in all Indian
languages.
From its inception, OERC has been closely affiliated with
Figure 1: The OERC-India homepage