I think the way we did it at Sick Kids is there were champions for eating disorders when we came in. We fought long and hard within our hospital to make sure this was an important issue that needed to be attended to, because there were no other resources in the province of Ontario when I came in that tended to children and adolescents. Now, however, there are. We're really thrilled there are these other programs in the province of Ontario.
As a result of that, we created the Ontario Community Outreach Program for Eating Disorders. This is a network that really delivers education and provides support to primary care physicians, secondary care physicians, and centres. The tertiary care centres, like CHEO and like us, are really the hub.
When physicians in the community or physicians in secondary care institutions have patients with eating disorders, they can call where they get support from the hub. There are educational programs that happen once or twice a year. The Ontario Community Outreach Program for Eating Disorders provides education and support to people who are interested in caring for eating disorders.
I think having that system in place has really helped, encouraged, and empowered people to take care of patients with eating disorders. They can be very sick and it can be very time consuming, but knowing you have backup at the tertiary care centre can be very helpful.