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In her recent appearance on Sanofi’s Patient Advocacy Voices podcast, ACCC Executive Director Meagan O’Neill discusses the operational gaps that delay access to cancer care, structural barriers that impact patient outcomes, and ACCC’s mission to supply a “how to” approach in bringing breakthrough science to cancer programs in the form of practical solutions.
In a recent episode of Sanofi’s Patient Advocacy Voices podcast, hosts Eric Racine and Rachel Solomon sat down with ACCC Executive Director Meagan O’Neill for a conversation on the systemic, operational, and local factors that influence patients’ ability to receive high-quality, timely cancer care. O’Neill began with a brief introduction of ACCC’s role as the “how to” organization in the oncology nonprofit space, explaining that the Association lives “at the intersection of policy change and clinical innovation, and how that translates into practical [implementation]” in cancer programs and practices.
O’Neill brings a unique perspective to her role at ACCC with a background in oncology business consulting. In her previous role, she helped clients identify strategic and operational challenges that proved to be some of the most complex topics in health system leadership. She recalled that it quickly became clear that “a lot of the challenges in cancer care delivery are not on the scientific side; research and clinical innovation have gone so far...The challenges are more structural.” O’Neill cited the fragmented health system, administrative bureaucracy, current workforce realities, and increasing specialization as key issues that make navigating cancer care increasingly difficult for patients and families.
O’Neill also spoke to the formative experience of acting as a caregiver for her mother in recent years, who was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, and how this experience shed light on the difficulty of navigating the health system in a whole new way for her. “That really changed everything for me and was the impetus that my systems advisory work in a consulting capacity needed to change to more of that system[-level] change...on a broader scale,” she shared.
Many of the common themes O’Neill encountered through her consulting work—such as navigating patients through a complex system, access issues with timely treatment approval, and workforce shortages in small community practices—were suddenly cast in a new light when she experienced them firsthand as a caregiver. Not only did the fragmentation of care become apparent, but the unfortunate reality that “the challenges of navigating one’s cancer journey can end up falling into the lap of the patient and their family."
Another defining characteristic of cancer care in the US is its variability, largely dependent on geography, program size, resources available, access to specialists, and many other factors. O’Neill acknowledged that although many of the clinical innovations in the oncology field come from academic centers, the majority of care is delivered in community settings. “The innovation has to reach patients where they receive care, otherwise we’ll continue to see variability,” she said.
O’Neill also touched on ACCC’s plans to continue developing robust data reporting capabilities, citing the key role of analytics and benchmarking as “[complements] to the patient stories.” Pairing storytelling with evidence-based metrics goes a long way in ACCC’s advocacy efforts both federally and at the state level to effectively demonstrate the scale and severity of issues like fragmentation and access to care. Furthermore, O’Neill sees immense “untapped potential” in the Association’s power to convene and to aggregate data that will fill in gaps not fully understood, such as access to emerging cellular therapies or timeliness of referrals: “There are better ways we can measure this and report out insights at scale.”
Finally, on the topic of collaboration, O’Neill iterated that cross-sector partnerships are central to ACCC’s 2030 vision, explaining that advocacy organizations have “a shared responsibility for change.” She also noted that, although many advocacy groups are aligned in awareness of issues, it is necessary to “move beyond awareness into execution, [because] the health care space is too complex and resource-constrained for siloed efforts.” Making meaningful strides in improving equitable access to care “will require partnerships of new and different kinds and in different ways,” along with a willingness to break down barriers within the health system.
This conversation underscores that improving cancer care is no longer just about advancing science—it’s about transforming the systems that deliver it. From addressing fragmentation and workforce challenges to ensuring innovations reach patients in community settings, meaningful progress will depend on aligning policy, practice, and the patient experience.
For more insights on these topics, listen to the full episode.
