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Yale Cancer Center Experts Lead National Roundtables

January 21, 2025

Goals: Mitigating care disparities & screenings

Prostate cancer is the focus of the newest American Cancer Society Roundtable and it’s being led by one of Yale Cancer Center’s newest members, William K. Oh, MD, and another ACS group that began its collaborative work nearly two decades ago was founded by YCC’s Tracy Battaglia, MD, MPH.

“We’ve been at this a long time, before many understood the potential impact of (patient) navigation on equitable cancer care,” said Dr. Battaglia, YCC Associate Director for Cancer Care Equity. She noted that the National Navigation Roundtable’s three workgroups have had many accomplishments, including contributions to the recent federal-level ruling to reimburse for patient navigation services by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services beginning in January 2024.

That decision marked the culmination of work that began, at least in part, in 2005 with the original National Cancer Institute/ACS Patient Navigation Research Program. Dr. Battaglia was one of the original co-principal investigators and later became founding chair of the ACS National Navigation Roundtable in 2017. She remains an active member of its steering committee.

Dr. Battaglia said, the roundtable's work is not done. “We are focused now on implementation of best practices, including billing for Principle Illness Navigation (PIN) services and state-level policy to get Medicaid reimbursement,” she said.

Dr. Oh, who is director of Precision Medicine for YCC and Smilow Cancer Hospital, said conferring with other ACS groups has been “invaluable as we try to avoid the bumps in the road of roundtables with more experience.”

The prostate roundtable, founded in September 2024, will follow the path of others by coordinating efforts across multiple member organizations. Dr. Oh, who has treated prostate cancer patients for decades, says his roundtable's mission very ambitious: “To eliminate death and suffering from prostate cancer, for all. But the idea is to promote evidence-based strategies, catalyze new policies and use the ACS network to share knowledge and patient-facing solutions.”

Equity is also a goal for the prostate panel, Dr. Oh said. In its first year, the first two projects will focus on risk assessment and screening. “The goal is to educate primary care physicians and staff about prostate cancer screening for folks with high risk of developing prostate cancer, especially Black men and/or those with a family history,” he said.

“In addition, we are building a data dashboard to report epidemiology, treatment and screening data across geography and demographics, a particular strength of ACS,” said Dr. Oh. He added that roundtable's steering committee reflects a diverse group of clinicians, scientists, patient advocates and community members and he anticipates that the broader coalition will include many more dedicated groups and individuals.

Data reflecting strong scientific evidence is one of the most effective tools agreed Dr. Battaglia. Persistence from a core group of committed steering committee members is another important element, she said, as well as their ability to grow membership, adding experts from across the healthcare spectrum including academic medical centers, professional and community organizations, policymakers, payors and more.

A consistent focus also bolsters a roundtable's effectiveness, Dr. Battaglia said. She said the National Navigation Roundtable has historically focused on three known barriers to providing navigators to patients:
• Evidence-base to support best practices
• Workforce development/competent workforce
• Policies for sustainability and reimbursement

Visit ACS for more on its roundtables, which also include breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung caners and HPV vaccination..