Cancer treatment is more than its therapies, and hospitals are utilizing a number of medical practices, social determinants of health programs and technologies to make cancer care more accessible and effective.
Here, five oncology leaders share with Becker's what work or program at their cancer center makes them most proud:
Ken Chaij. Executive Director of Oncology Service Line at Kettering (Ohio) Health: We're treating patients for their cancer, but patients have a lot of other things going on in their life and our team, with local partners, have started to focus on those needs. COVID-19 has brought some of those to the forefront and made them starkly visible to us. Two of the largest issues are transportation and food insecurity. Transportation has always been something that people struggle with, but food is a new one.
We've started to create a safety net for patients in need, and we can now connect them with food banks and transportation services. My team of clinicians has created a voluntary program as a stopgap measure to provide bags of food for the patient and their family for a week or two. It's not a constant thing, but it takes into account their therapy, allergies, easy to cook, and availability of resources like can openers or access to a kitchen for our homeless patients. I'm so proud of Kettering Health, our team and our partners for stepping forward to say, "This isn't really a cancer thing, but it's affecting our cancer patients and it affects their health, outcomes and how they're doing under therapy. So we need to do it."
Chris Flowers, MD. Division Head Ad Interim Of Cancer Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston): I'm extraordinarily proud of the work we've done around delivering goal concordant care. This work is centered on trying to make sure that we meet patients and families where they are and deliver care that matches their goals and the realities of the cancer that they are facing. This has been something that was very critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have instituted processes both within our ICUs and system to make sure that those goals of care are being addressed during parts of the care delivery process.
A researcher studied our goal concordant care program, comparing about 5,000 patients who received care before implementation and about 5,000 after implementation, and found that this program decreased the ICU length of stay and decreased our hospital length of stay and actually had an impact on the system as a whole.
The other steps that we've taken even beyond those efforts are to make sure that all of our physicians and teams are trained in the process of having these difficult conversations that are necessary to be able to institute care. The majority of our clinicians inside of my division of cancer medicine have been trained in the serious illness conversation guide. This is also occurring in our nursing division. The training gives our providers the tool sets for having these crucial conversations and helps patients and their families achieve their goals of care.
Michael Postow, MD. Chief of Melanoma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York City): I think right now at Sloan, and particularly within our melanoma group, I'm most proud that we can deliver cellular therapy for cancer patients because this is not an easy treatment modality to deliver. It really requires a great team of multidisciplinary physicians and researchers, and I think at Sloan, the fact that we can do this and offer this is something special. In fact, we're getting referrals from all over the country and even internationally. So I think we're a real pioneer in that area and that we're able to do this is a great source of pride: We can do something that very few other places around the world can do.
Joanna Sesti, MD. Director of Thoracic Surgery at RWJ Barnabas Health (West Orange, N.J.) and Chief of Thoracic Surgery and Director of Robotic Thoracic Surgery at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center (Livingston, N.J.): I think that the commitment to adopting the latest technologies is really great. Our hospitals have the latest iteration of the DaVinci robotic system and at least two hospitals have access to one of the robotic bronchoscopy systems. And because we're affiliated with Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, which is the only NCI-designated cancer center in New Jersey, we're able to help patients access millions of clinical trials throughout cancer care. Before, they had to travel to Manhattan or elsewhere to enroll in trials. Our system is really pushing to make that a thing of the past for the state of New Jersey.
William Tse, MD. Division Director Of Hematology And Oncology at MetroHealth (Cleveland): I'm most proud of the legacy we carry on at MetroHealth of more than 187 years of glorious history. MetroHealth takes care of the most vulnerable population in the city, and we are very proud of being that safety net. Most importantly, we bring in the most active, most innovative, most cutting edge cancer treatments and democratize them.