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From comprehensive genetics education for nurses to a risk tool that identifies the patients who are most likely to miss their mammography appointment, the latest Oncology Issues identifies barriers to care and spotlights meaningful initiatives to mitigate them.
The newest issue of Oncology Issues provides practical solutions and insights to obstacles faced by the entire multidisciplinary cancer team. From addressing structural barriers to survivorship care to redesigning patient education tools, read on for the latest developments from teams across ACCC's membership.
In the days following a cancer diagnosis, clinicians often struggle to effectively exchange information with patients—due to both the overwhelming nature of navigating cancer and low levels of health literacy in the US. Research indicates that nearly 9 in 10 adults in the US struggle with health literacy, making medical terms and instructions or insurance navigation burdensome.
This article examines two physician-led initiatives, CLEAR and Oncology101.org, that address the comprehension gap between patients and their care teams. Both use plain wording and are available to patients and caregivers before and after clinic visits. These resources allow patients to access the information they need to make informed decisions with their care team through accessible and compassionate language.
As research and technology have advanced, cancer care has become increasingly effective, allowing more people to live long, full lives after diagnosis. As a result, there is a growing emphasis on survivorship and supportive care that addresses patients' long-term quality-of-life needs, both during and after treatment.
This article spotlights the Sylvester Survivorship and Supportive Care Institute at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center in Miami, Florida. Rather than viewing survivorship as a transfer of care, the Institute integrates these essential ancillary services into existing oncology care teams, ensuring that the patient experience is seamless, precise, and individualized.
Patients with cancer living in rural areas have long faced systemic barriers to care, with long travel distances to treatment centers and shortages of oncologists playing a key role in patient outcomes. Beyond clinical implications, the imbalance of providers in metropolitan versus rural settings has led to the emergence of “cancer deserts,” or regions with severely limited access to oncology care.
This article explores how an integrated model deployed by the Community Hospital Cancer Center in McCook, Nebraska, implements telehealth, outreach clinics, and advanced practice provider training to address persistent disparities in rural cancer care and bring high-quality care to underserved communities.
Missed appointments, or "no-shows," particularly in imaging services, result in lost revenue, underused provider time, and delayed preventive care for patients. Noticing a high rate of mammography no-shows, St. Luke’s University Health Network adopted a proactive, data-driven approach to identify which individuals were most at risk of missing their upcoming appointments.
This article outlines St. Luke’s use of historical data and predictive analytics in conjunction with human oversight to enable more proactive scheduling interventions, greater provider utilization, and significant revenue recovery.
As technology continues to advance rapidly, personalized medicine is becoming the standard of care in oncology. Genetic testing and genomic sequencing are powerful tools that can help clinicians identify the most effective treatment for a patient. However, studies reveal notable knowledge deficits among nurses regarding genetic principles, terminology, and pharmacogenomics—limiting their ability to assist patients in making informed treatment decisions.
To address this knowledge gap and provide nurses with the necessary training and resources to help them better advocate for patients, a multisite pilot study from hospitals in Illinois, Arizona, and Georgia evaluated participants’ knowledge and the impact of targeted educational intervention. Read the full article to learn which types of interventions were most impactful and how they improved bedside nurses' confidence in discussing patients’ options for genetic testing.
Given the large proportion of patients who receive cancer care at community programs rather than large academic centers, oncology has seen a growth of decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) to allow for greater access to trials, reduce the socioeconomic burden of participation, and increase diverse representation. By hosting clinical trials in multiple locations and virtually when appropriate, cutting-edge cancer care can extend beyond academic institution epicenters to the local level across geographic and socioeconomic lines.
Learn more about the decentralized model from Sanford Health, the largest rural healthcare system in the US. This case study explores methods to overcome challenges in the implementation of a DCT system, ranging from staffing considerations to administrative and regulatory processes.
Bispecific antibodies (BsAbs) are an emerging class of therapies for hematologic malignancies with potential applications in solid tumors, and their growing therapeutic success is driving many cancer programs to integrate BsAbs into clinical practice. In community settings, however, challenges such as heightened protocols for dosing changes and intensive patient monitoring for toxicity-related side effects are key barriers that must be considered.
This article offers lessons from early adopters that can help other programs safely adopt, implement, and scale BsAb therapies to improve operationalization and access.
Although daunting on the surface, smaller, community-based organizations can still harness the therapeutic power of BsAbs, despite the misconception that the therapy can only be successfully administered at larger institutions. In specific cases, the beginning phases of the treatment can be handled at a larger center, and then follow-up dosing can be administered and patients can be monitored in their local treatment centers.
Explore cross-functional workflows that programs can adapt to their size and resources to expand access to BsAbs for their patient populations, especially in the context of challenging blood cancers like relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.
In addition to the feature articles, this issue of Oncology Issues offers:
Read the full journal for more on these topics and share this newest issue with colleagues to bring awareness to the important work being done by ACCC members throughout the multidisciplinary care team.
The 2026 NCCN Fall Policy Summit explored the current state of cancer screening and prevention services in the US, barriers that still drive disparities in screening uptake, and strategies to shift the paradigm of preventive cancer care.
