Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an opportunity to celebrate those in our lives who are fighting or have fought this disease and the heroes who care for them. At the same time, it is also important to reflect on how healthcare systems can better support this patient population, to drive improved clinical outcomes.
It is concerning that over the last decade, the incidence (or rate of new cases) of breast cancer has increased by 8%, according to data from the NCI, while the overall incidence for cancer has decreased by 3%. Included in this trend are early-onset cancers (new cancer in patients under the age of 50), of which there are more breast cancer cases than other disease types.
As cancer programs consider where to invest resources to have the most significant impact, we offer three areas of opportunity for consideration, based recent conversations we’ve had with cancer program leaders across the US:
- Reduced Barriers to Access: Screening and early detection are among the most powerful tools for improving clinical outcomes for breast cancer patients. Yet one in three women are not current with recommended screening schedule. A variety of barriers may contribute to individuals not staying current with their screenings—financial, emotional, and cultural; transportation, language, and work schedule. Understanding the barriers facing your local community is a critical first step in mitigating them.
- Timely Access to Care: As patient populations have grown and the healthcare workforce has stalled or contracted, maintaining timely access to care is a challenge. Programs commonly report a target time to first appointment of less than 5 business days; however, many acknowledge first-appointment wait times that regularly stretch to 10 or 20 days. Improving access to clinical services typically entails a comprehensive process to both identify and remediate the root cause issues.
- Comprehensive Care and Support Services: Excellent outcomes require excellent care. One step toward achieving that is bringing all of the clinicians together, organized in a seamless, easy-to-navigate care model. In turn, integrating other services (e.g., clinical navigation, financial navigation, nutrition, social work) into the cancer care continuum may be vital to ensuring that patients not only get the clinical services they require, but also remain compliant with the care plan.
If these thematic areas of opportunity ring true for your program, ECG’s Center for Advanced Oncology would be pleased to talk with you about how we can help. With over 100 years of combined experience with 300 clients across the US and internally, we understand how to drive performance in cancer centers and would be pleased to be a partner in your journey.
Accelerated Improvements. Better Cancer Care.
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