All Health Equity OI Articles

Montefiore Health System’s Community Health Worker Institute has mobilized a workforce of local community experts with the potential to change the way health care systems nationwide approach social drivers of health and health equity.

Highlights from the ACCC 50th Annual Meeting & Cancer Center Business Summit #AMCCBS.

In her first Oncology Issues column, ACCC president Nadine J. Barrett, PHD, MA, MS, FACCC, shares her 2024-2025 ACCC President’s Theme.

Embedding counseling services into oncology and palliative care across 6 clinic locations landed this program a 2023 ACCC Innovator Award. Learn how this model allows patients to receive psychosocial care from treatment through survivorship.

Discover how St. Elizabeth Cancer Center launched a comprehensive program to perform outreach to patients with outstanding orders for lung, breast, and colon cancer screenings.

Explore 4 pillars for creating a differentiated patient experience through performance and service line optimization to increase patient access, implementation of system-wide navigation services, and more.

This Modern Healthcare virtual briefing gathered industry leaders to discuss how digital transformation and health equity will help shape the hospital of the future.

This multidisciplinary discussion seeks to develop a standardized framework that allows community oncologists to easily assess patients for CAR T-cell therapy, with a focus on large B cell lymphoma.

Learn how Dorcy Cancer Center at St Mary-Corwin Hospital in Pueblo, Colorado, developed and implemented the model tobacco cessation program.

The importance of care coordination in managing the adverse effects of cancer treatment and navigating patient challenges such as emotional distress, isolation, financial toxicity, and lower quality of life.

CAR T-cell therapies have ushered in a new era of treatment options for patients with certain hematologic malignancies. Thus, it is important to make these therapies accessible and affordable.

Learn about the critical role patient navigation plays in identifying, addressing, and dismantling health inequities across the cancer care continuum.

Despite scientific and medical advances, the incidence and mortality rates of cancer remain disproportionately high among certain populations. Understanding this, combatting the inequities that exist will be key to delivering next generation cancer care.

The Collaborative Care Model uses the stepped care approach, enabling a flexible and personalized treatment approach that aligns with each patient’s specific needs.

Virginia Cancer Research Institute successfully implemented a cutting-edge clinical trials navigation program that improved the patient and provider experience and demonstrated a significant return on investment.

Take a deep dive into 4 topics discussed during a series of interactive sessions at the ACCC 49th Annual Meeting and Cancer Center Business Summit (#AMCCBS).

Climate change is typically seen through an environmental, political, or socioeconomic lens. Yet it should also be seen as a catastrophic health threat as it will have an effect on the delivery of comprehensive cancer care.

Highlights from the ACCC 49th Annual Meeting and Cancer Center Business Summit.

Spotlight on Ivinson Memorial Hospital, Meredith and Jeannie Ray Cancer Center.

Backed by strategic partnerships, ACCC held a multistakeholder meeting focused on exploring the current state of psychosocial support in oncology.

In his first president's message, Olalekan Ajayi PharmD, MBA discusses his 2023-2024 ACCC President’s Theme: (Re)Building the Oncology Workforce to Deliver Next Generation Cancer Care.

Industry leaders share insights on the transformation of hospitals and health systems. All agree that the healthcare of the future will be delivered in ambulatory settings and that success will rest on implementing a technology-enabled delivery system.

Through a collaboration between legal and healthcare professionals, this Virginia based medical-legal partnership assists patients with cancer resolve social and environmental factors that contribute to health disparities.

Learn how one health care system is operationalizing the Just Ask™ implicit bias program to ensure equitable access to clinical trials.

Following the disparate outcomes of the COVID-19, combatting the inequities that exist within the American healthcare system remains a key objective of ACCC.

Amid the implementation of technological solutions such as remote patient monitoring in cancer care, it is important that all patients with cancer—regardless of race, ethnicity, and socio-economic status—benefit equitably.

A national survey was conducted to analyze the approach cancer programs adopt toward patient access today, highlighting the current challenges, and operational methods of different cancer care delivery models.

A trailblazing Winston-Salem based cancer center successfully created and developed the role of a population health navigator to address the unique needs of various underserved communities.

Highlands Oncology Group took key steps toward implementing an ePRO platform aimed at reducing emergency department utilization and unplanned hospitalization, while improving the patient’s quality of life.

ACCC conducted a national, institution-directed quality improvement initiative aimed at increasing the rates of guideline-concordant genetic counseling and testing in patients with Stage 0 to III breast cancer, where results could impact care.

On Tuesday, Aug. 16, President Joe Biden signed the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law, delivering on several key aspects of his “Build Back Better” social and environmental agenda.

Physician shortages and growing healthcare costs threaten the sustainability of the in-person care model, but telemedicine and remote monitoring can be solutions for delivering equitable cancer care and improving access to quality care.

Cancer and its treatment impact patients in many ways, beginning before a diagnosis and lasting long through survivorship, including one's sexual health. All of Me was created to bridge this communication gap between patients and providers.

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center shares details about how it shifted from a push to a pull model of care for patients who present at the emergency department with incidental findings.

ACCC and AstraZeneca were recognized for their joint effort in the Rural Appalachian Lung Cancer Screening Initiative at the Cancer Moonshot: Goals Forum hosted, by the President and First Lady.

The Iowa Oncology Society launched an educational project designed to spark conversations, and raise awareness about the importance of genetic testing, counseling, and screening.

The successful deployment of technology in cancer practices, promises to improve the quality of patient care and the patient experience, while also alleviating excessive burdens on clinicians and staff.

The HealthPartners Frauenshuh Cancer Center has safely incorporated cannabis in the treatment of patients with cancer.

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center shares how auricular acupuncture, a safe, feasible, and cost-effective therapy, that stimulates points on the ear, can reduce the pain and psychological distress experienced by patients with cancer.

Medicare prior authorization requirements acts as a barrier to patients accessing necessary services and treatments, thus creating a need for reform.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact in the rate of cancer screening across various states in the United States. Louisiana, Delaware, Kentucky and Northern Michigan serve as vehicles for an analysis of the disparity in cancer screening rates, before and after the pandemic.

Disparities in evaluation, management, and mortality persist in patient populations where bladder cancer is less common.

Presbyterian Healthcare Services developed a unique service, offering patients with cancer certain clinical interventions and wellness checks in the comfort of their home that is provided by the Albuquerque Ambulance Service Mobile Integrated Health team.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a necessity for the incorporation of remote home monitoring for cancer patients, in order to maintain the health of both the patient and the health care workers who aid them.

With increased recognition of the value of oncology social work services for patients, families, and providers, cancer programs and practices may benefit from a fresh consideration of billing for oncology social work services.

Comprehensive cancer care encompasses a wide range of services that are critical to high-quality care and the patient experience.

A mix-method approach to understand clinician use of biomarker testing for patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

While recent advances in precision medicine have substantially changed the management of lung cancer, care must be taken to ensure that these advances do not worsen health disparities. This study included a case component that divided overall respondents into two cohorts to observe how patient characteristics, such as age, socio-economic status, race/ethnicity, and health literacy, affected the likelihood of ordering biomarker testing.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilmot Cancer Institute's integrative oncology team shares how integrative oncology-based services can be delivered via telehealth.

In 2019, at the University of Colorado, Douglas Holt, MD, led the effort to implement and study the use of virtual reality within the clinic for patient education in oncology.

When the COVID-19 public health emergency heightened, everyone’s priorities shifted and the Patient and Family Advisory Council moved to the virtual space.

Because a recent JAMA article made a call to elevate health equity as the fifth aim for healthcare improvement, it’s clear that social work expertise and interventions have never been more important to comprehensive cancer care.

From January 24 to 28, 2022, ACCC co-sponsored Health Care Value Week—a series of virtual events supporting the advancement of value-based care.

As precision medicine becomes more common in the management of lung cancer, little is understood about the patient experience with biomarker testing, particularly of underserved patients. This study used survey and focus group methodology to determine patient perspectives on the educational needs within this community.

Under ACORI, ACCC helps community oncology programs access the tools, knowledge sharing, effective practices, and peer mentorships that can increase their ability to offer clinical trials.

To meet patients’ needs during the height of the pandemic, this cancer program created a collaborative and more efficient hybrid-style Integrative Therapy Program for all of its oncology sites.

Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and from healthcare organizations actively engaged in assessing care delivery through the lens of health equity can serve as guideposts for the oncology community on the path to making cancer care more equitable.

As we turn the corner toward 2022, for oncology to drive equity forward: We need every member and every discipline, patient, leader, payer, industry partner, and innovator working together to provide the most equitable care possible in a sustainable way.

In addition to the global pandemic, ongoing lawsuits from referenced biologics' manufacturers suing biosimilar manufacturers are having a negative impact on the development and approval of new biosimilars.

Learn the 10 feasible and impactful “how-tos” Summit participants identified within three domains—care coordination and communication, clinical trials, and acknowledging and mitigating implicit bias.

Because interdisciplinary teams become specialists in treating certain disease sites, it is important to develop distress screening guidelines that best serve specific patient populations and their treatment.

With disparate breast cancer outcomes, lack of messages of hope, and limited available support for Black women, Rev. Tammie and her late sister were inspired to co-found Carrie’s TOUCH in 2006.

One important step toward supporting the health of Indigenous Peoples was the opening of the Center for Indigenous Cancer Research (CICR) at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in January 2020. Its mission: to reduce the impact of cancer on Indigenous communities regionally, nationally, and internationally.

One of the ways in which community oncology is helping to close gaps in cancer research is through participation in the National Cancer Institute Community Oncology Research Program clinical trials. The Lahey Health Cancer Institute, a part of the Beth Israel Lahey Health System, continues to expand access to clinical trials and, in particular, the NCI National Clinical Trials Network into the community by partnering with affiliated community hospitals.

Rather than fielding its annual Trending Now in Cancer Care survey while cancer programs were experiencing unprecedented challenges due to the extended public health emergency, ACCC chose to facilitate conversations with its members to capture the lived experiences of the most pertinent issues impacting oncology practice and care delivery.

This next year, as we emerge out of COVID-19’s shadow and into a landscape that has been forever altered by the worldwide pandemic, it is important that we reflect on what we witnessed this past year—not only the suffering but the “wins.”

Oncologists may not be on the frontline taking care of patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units or emergency departments, but we do have the chance to advocate for vaccination to win the race against this deadly virus.

This is the story of how a large independent practice in northwest Arkansas has nurtured its research program over several decades and is now able to offer patients access to phase I, II, and III trials close to home and their families.