Last month, members of ECG’s Center for Advanced Oncology attended the Association of Cancer Executives (ACE) Annual Meeting and the Association of Cancer Care Centers (ACCC) Annual Meeting and Business Summit. These national events bring together oncology industry leaders to share insights on the trends shaping cancer care delivery in the US market. The meetings focused on a cancer care landscape that is continuously evolving, driven by technological advancements, therapeutic innovations, growing patient access demands, and other consumer-driven trends.
Below are six topics from this year’s meetings that stood out to us.
1. Access to High-Quality Care
The combination of an aging population, growing consumerism, and workforce shortages continues to put a spotlight on patient access. Oncology care providers are looking for new ways to enhance convenience and accessibility for patients seeking diagnostic and treatment services.
The diagnostic clinic concept presented at the ACE meeting by the Ohio State University's James Cancer Center is a prime example of innovative patient access solutions in oncology care. The James Cancer Diagnostic Center was piloted in 2023 to address pent-up service demand coming out of the pandemic. The new clinic offers streamlined scheduling, rapid diagnostic testing, and telemedicine options to improve timely access to cancer screenings and evaluation results, ultimately leading to earlier detection and interventions to benefit patients.
2. Patient-Centered Care
Organizations that prioritize the patient experience are poised to become the providers of choice. Patients increasingly want to be engaged in their cancer treatment decisions expectations. Several sessions at ACE showcased patient navigation programs as a model for providing personalized, holistic support resources for patients, improving health outcomes, and addressing patients’ social-emotional well-being.
3. Technological Advancements
Technological advancements are revolutionizing cancer care delivery. In particular, the implementation of precision medicine and personalized treatment approaches, such as artificial intelligence platforms, was highlighted as a key strategy to optimize treatment plans and improve patient outcomes. Additionally, the use of virtual reality for patient education and symptom management was identified as a promising tool to enhance the patient experience.
4. Expansion of Cellular Therapy
Adoption of cellular therapy treatment is likely to increase over the next few years. There is a booming field within this segment of cancer care and vast opportunities for therapeutic advances capable of changing the paradigm of cancer treatment. But for all the promise cellular therapy shows, successfully operationalizing these programs continues to be a challenge for many provider organizations. Understanding CAR-T program development, reimbursement, site-of-care nuances, and so forth will be key to unlocking the potential of these treatments.
5. Community Engagement in Cancer Prevention
Cancer centers are developing creative models that push traditional thinking in cancer-related community outreach and engagement. We saw numerous examples of targeted screening programs and personalized risk assessments tailored to address specific populations’ unmet needs or health disparity gaps. Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center is a pioneer in this space, and at ACCC, Renea Austin-Duffin, Vice President of Cancer Support and Outreach, spoke to the center’s portfolio of community and corporate programs, each demonstrating positive impacts on cancer education and prevention.
Discussions in this area are sure to intensify over the coming years, given the consequential impacts of delayed cancer screening stemming from the pandemic and the NCI’s latest priorities related to improving health disparities in cancer treatment.
6. Value-Based Care Shift
The continued shift toward value-based payment models (emphasizing quality metrics, outcomes, and patient satisfaction) is reshaping oncology reimbursement. Bundled payment programs for cancer care services are gaining momentum in select markets, such as the 2024 initiative launched by the Cleveland Clinic, designed to incentivize providers for delivering coordinated and efficient care while also prioritizing cost-effective treatment options for patients. Such reforms are driving improvements in care delivery and financial sustainability for cancer providers.
Our Impressions
It was unsurprising, but striking nonetheless, to see how closely the key themes at the ACE and ACCC meetings paralleled the conversations we’ve been having with our clients. So many of our recent oncology engagements focused on improving patient access, navigating technological and therapeutic advancements, evaluating and implementing cellular therapy programs, and more. With demand for cancer services expected to grow in the next decade, it’s clear that organizations are determined to find innovative ways to provide care that is affordable, accessible, and highly effective.
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Edited by: Matt Maslin
