Mapping childcare support for patients at a sample of North American hospitals and cancer centers: an environmental scan.

Abstract

Approximately a quarter of cancer patients are parents to young children. One unique challenge faced by this patient group is the difficulty of accessing childcare support during medical appointments. Hospital-based childcare options could represent a solution to this problem, but to this point, no comprehensive scans have described existing on-site childcare centers. The purpose of this study is to identify and characterize on-site childcare services available to patients at selected North American hospitals. This information could inform the development of similar programs for cancer patients. Using publicly available information, an environmental scan of the grey literature was conducted to investigate Canadian and American hospitals for the presence of childcare services. A standardized data collection tool was used to extract center characteristics. Twenty-six childcare centers were identified across 161 hospitals in both Canada and the USA, with 8/55 Canadian hospitals and 18/106 American hospitals having patient-accessible on-site services. The majority of the centers were associated with pediatric hospitals (77%). Only a single childcare center was associated with a cancer hospital. All centers accommodated children between the ages of 3 and 8. Most centers were open for over 30h per week (77%) and were free of charge to users (89%). Other characteristics, including capacity and staffing, varied widely. These results represent an inventory of patient-accessible, on-site childcare services currently available at selected North American hospitals. Cancer patients who are also parents may especially benefit from this kind of support.