Bringing Cutting-Edge Cancer Care to Communities

Today is World Cancer Day, a time when I reflect on my cancer journey and the inequitable nature of cancer care in the United States.

I was diagnosed with stage III melanoma in 2013, and I faced challenges shared by so many patients and families who receive the same diagnosis. After a year of surgeries and different drug therapies, my cancer had progressed to stage IV and my doctor was out of options. He said I needed to find a clinical trial if I had any hope.

I remember feeling stuck in the middle of what seemed like a giant health care maze without a guide to help me to the end. There were no treatment centers nearby in St. Louis that could offer the innovation I needed to survive, so I sought treatment with a clinical trial based in Florida. The emerging immunotherapy I received in this trial – now the standard of care for melanoma – ultimately put me in remission. This spring, I’ll celebrate 11 years cancer-free.

My life and the lives of countless others have been changed by revolutionary cancer therapies and treatments. Such innovations are born in the lab and nurtured in select centers of excellence, where some of the best and brightest minds in science have produced amazing breakthroughs. However, the concentration of innovation in select cities and universities has unfortunate downsides.

Americans face what feels like two standards of cancer care – one where a patient can access a center of excellence, and one where a patient is unable to do so. This is far from ideal: a zip code should not limit your quality of care or access to innovative treatments. People with cancer already face many tough choices throughout their journey, the least of which should be having to choose between the burden of long travel or limited treatment options. Adding to the frustrating choices is the fact that many patients and local care teams do not have the tools to access the knowledge and information concentrated in health care destinations.

Confronting these choices in my own journey deepened my understanding of the challenges individuals face when seeking treatment for cancer. Perhaps most striking is the need for stronger collaboration between leading treatment centers and community oncology practices to extend a hand in keeping up with the pace of innovation and create more opportunities to test them in the “real world.”

My doctor’s candor saved my life even though the treatment took place outside of his practice. Meeting people where they live – and making them aware of their treatment options – is key to both improving patient outcomes in cancer and bridging disparities in cancer treatment access.

Thus, it is important that our industry advances tools to share information about this rapidly evolving treatment landscape. At a minimum, providers in communities across America should have access to information necessary to advise patients and their families on the course of treatment or clinical trial that can provide them with the best chances at surviving these devastating diseases. Ideally, that care could take place locally as well. At the clinical trial stage, we must pilot models that reach communities outside of the cancer centers of excellence. The adoption of real-world data can actualize clinical trials that mirror the real-world patient experience outside of these isolated academic centers.

It is imperative that our system speed awareness of innovations and adoption of standards of care to reduce geographic disparities in care quality for patients living outside of major health care destinations. Such efforts will require resolve from the health care industry, but the capability is there to broaden access for everyone who receives a cancer diagnosis.

While our health care system can seem disjointed at times, it is filled with high-quality care and hope for a better future. I firmly believe that people – no matter where they live – should have the same access to care. We can bring more hope to more people and honor the spirit of World Cancer Day by improving access to best-in-class cancer care for Americans.

NOTE: The views expressed here belong solely to me and do not reflect the views of Express Scripts or Evernorth Health Services.