Grants will support screening and
navigation, and create new strategies and models for overcoming
barriers to care for low-income and minority populations
To mark National Cancer Prevention Month, the Bristol-Myers
Squibb Foundation today announced eight grants totaling nearly
$11.5 million that will help make lung and skin cancer screening
programs, care and patient support more accessible to underserved
populations. The goal is to develop, validate and sustain models
that deliver equitable and optimal outcomes.
The grants were awarded through the Foundation’s Bridging Cancer
Care™ and Specialty Care for Vulnerable Populations initiatives.
Bridging Cancer Care focuses on pilot projects in select
southeastern U.S. states with the highest lung cancer burden to
advance evidence-based strategies to improve lung cancer screening
and assist patients diagnosed with lung cancer access and navigate
cancer care and community-based supportive services. Specialty Care
for Vulnerable Populations supports care collaborations among
primary care and specialty care providers and patient engagement
and social support in order to improve the quality of specialty
care services for underserved populations living with lung cancer,
skin cancer or HIV.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.,
with a mortality rate higher than any other cancer, primarily
because the cancer is not detected or treated at an early
stage.
“Obstacles to screening, especially for minority and underserved
populations, often result in patients receiving a late-stage
diagnosis, which dramatically reduces their chances for survival,”
says John Damonti, president, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation. “We
are pleased to engage our partners to develop innovative programs
that will improve the health outcomes of underserved patient
populations facing lung cancer, to help prevent skin cancer among
migrant worker populations and to advocate for system-wide change
to remove barriers to specialty care.”
The Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) received a
three-year, $4.1 million grant to develop a collaborative approach
to improving lung cancer care for Medicaid patients. ACCC will
develop and validate an Optimal Care Coordination Model and engage
ACCC’s member cancer programs and practices which includes more
than 20,000 multidisciplinary providers, community health centers,
patient advocacy organizations, health system leadership, payers
and policymakers, to strengthen and complete lung cancer systems of
care and improve outcomes for Medicaid patients.
“Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer facing our nation today,
and tackling this disease requires a fully integrated approach that
treats the full patient,” says Steven L. D'Amato, BSPharm, BCOP,
president, ACCC. “With this collaboration, ACCC looks forward to
bringing our unmatched expertise in multidisciplinary cancer care
to improve cancer coordination across the country so that
vulnerable populations living with lung cancer have access to
the treatment they need.”
Anne Arundel Medical Center received a three-year, $1.25 million
grant to replicate and expand the medical center’s successful Rapid
Access Chest and Lung Assessment Program, which reduced the time
from lung cancer screening to diagnosis from as much as four months
for outpatients to an average of 16 days by quickly identifying,
engaging and managing patients through an increased centralization
of care and a thoracic nurse navigator. The program will focus on
low-income and racial minority patients who are at risk for or
diagnosed with lung cancer in Maryland’s Anne Arundel, Calvert and
Prince George counties.
“While Anne Arundel Medical Center's DeCesaris Cancer
Institute's lung screening and thoracic oncology programs have
continued to expand over the past five years, our successes have
been more limited among vulnerable, lower-income and minority
populations,” says Stephen Cattaneo, MD, medical director of
Thoracic Oncology at Anne Arundel Medical Center. “The grant from
the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation will allow us the opportunity
to better reach and inform these at-risk patients in our area and
surrounding Maryland counties about the need for lung cancer
screening while providing desperately needed education and
resources for smoking cessation.”
The American Cancer Society received a three-year, $1.25 million
grant to partner with three federally qualified heath centers
(FQHCs) – Valley Health in Huntington, West Virginia; Christ
Community Health Services in Memphis, Tennessee; and a third to be
identified – to introduce patient education and clinic-based
navigation services to support patients from lung cancer screening
through diagnosis.
Screening for lung cancer in high-risk current or former smokers
is one of the most important emerging cancer control opportunities.
The FQHCs will work with primary and specialty care providers to
ensure they are prepared to assess patient risk for lung cancer,
support a shared decision about screening and provide referrals for
those with a positive screening result.
“Implementing lung cancer screening demands an integrated system
involving primary care, radiology, pulmonary physicians, screening
facilities, as well as a cancer treatment team,” says Richard
Wender, MD, chief cancer control officer for the Society. “This new
grant will allow Society staff to work with the FQHCs to learn how
to build capacity to provide high-quality lung cancer screening for
low-income communities.”
The Patient Advocate Foundation received a three-year, $1.36
million grant for a program linking West Virginia’s lung cancer
patients to case management support, which responds to a decision
for the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services to provide
coverage for annual low-dose CT lung cancer screening for at-risk
patients. The project will identify barriers to care for vulnerable
populations and develop strategies to link patients to providers,
increase community awareness of lung cancer screening and make
available the Lung Cancer CareLine, a system that provides hands-on
comprehensive navigation of the health care system to increase
access to emerging therapies and treatment.
The Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention (RLC), in
partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, received a
two-year, $604,582 grant to pilot a lung cancer screening and
continuum of care access program for patients in underserved and
high-risk populations in the Harlem and northern Manhattan sections
of New York City.
RLC will use new approaches, including community outreach and
patient incentives, to encourage more people to get screened for
lung cancer. Outreach workers and care navigators from RLC will
partner with community-based organizations, houses of worship and
primary health care centers to educate people about the importance
of lung cancer screening and navigate them through care. Memorial
Sloan Kettering will also help to identify high-risk patients
through smoking cessation programs as well as assist with access to
treatment and care.
“The Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention has a
strong history of pioneering new models, including a groundbreaking
patient navigation program in East Harlem,” says Gina Villani, MD,
MPH, chief executive officer, RLC. “The patients we serve face
numerous obstacles to medical screening and care, and often feel
disenfranchised by the medical community. Our community-based and
community-focused approach will engage those patients to be
screened and, if needed, treated for lung cancer.”
Farmworker Justice received a two-year, $750,000 grant to engage
a diverse range of stakeholders to develop a demonstration project
in California and Florida to promote community integration of skin
cancer services and reduce the impact of skin cancer among
farmworkers and their families. Although farmworkers in the U.S.
are exposed to living and working conditions that double their risk
of developing melanoma and other skin cancers, access to skin
cancer prevention, screening and specialty care and services are
difficult to obtain.
“In addition to providing access to skin cancer detection
services, resulting in earlier detection of skin cancer and
appropriate skin cancer treatment, this project will develop and
share effective approaches and strategies to address the particular
needs and wishes of farmworker communities and increase the ability
to inform and influence national private and public sector
decision-makers to better respond to this important public health
issue,” says Bruce Goldstein, president, Farmworker Justice.
In addition, two program support grants totaling nearly $2
million were awarded to FSG and The Center for Health Law and
Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School to help translate
successful models emerging from Specialty Care for Vulnerable
Populations and Bridging Cancer Care into sustainable cancer and
specialty care services through alternative funding, payment reform
and institutional and public policy change.
About the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation
The mission of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation is to help
reduce health disparities by strengthening community-based health
care worker capacity, integrating medical care and community-based
supportive services, and mobilizing communities in the fight
against disease.
For more information about the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation,
please visit www.bms.com/foundation or follow us on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/bmsnews.
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Bristol-Myers Squibb FoundationFrederick J. Egenolf,
609-252-4875frederick.egenolf@bms.com
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