Guest Commentator: Karen Knudsen, MBA, Ph.D, CEO, American Cancer Society, @AmericanCancer
What does innovation in healthcare mean to you, and what is its measurable impact on our community?
What is measurable impact in the cancer space? Let’s frame the problem: the burden of cancer is unacceptable. This year, 1.9 million Americans will hear “you have cancer” for the first time, and over 600,000 people will not survive cancer. While we’ve made measurable progress against the more than 200 diseases we call “cancer,” not all have benefitted.
Since 1991, there has been a 32 percent reduction in the overall cancer death rate, resulting from research breakthroughs in prevention, detection, and treatment. This is something to celebrate! We are finally gaining ground against deadly cancers such as lung cancer and melanoma. However, many other cancer types raise concern. There is a drift in prostate cancer being diagnosed at later stages when difficult to treat. Pancreatic cancer continues to rise, for which there is no routine screening strategy. Alarming rises are occurring in colorectal cancer amongst those under age 50, prompting us in 2018 to recommend first colonoscopies at age 45. Furthermore, cancer disparities are profound—for example, Black men are twice as likely to die from prostate cancer versus Whites, and Black women are significantly more likely to die from breast cancer, irrespective of stage at diagnosis.
To address these concerns, I feel that innovation in healthcare is really collaboration – figuring out the best and most efficient way for all of our health systems, healthcare professionals, researchers, advocates, navigators, and caretakers to work together to achieve the greatest impact for the cancer patient.
Innovation is connecting the dots along the cancer care continuum. It all starts with research, funding the best and brightest researchers to make breakthroughs. From there, advocates take on the patients’ voices to increase access to cancer breakthroughs through supporting policies and legislation that help cancer patients. And finally, patient support work provides direct care. In the Philadelphia area, ACS invested $250K across 19 transportation grants to 12 health system partners from 2021-2022. Because of that innovative collaboration, more than 2,200 rides were provided to cancer patients to get to and from treatment.
So how do we measure the impact to the community? Simple math:
Cancer Research Discoveries + Access through Advocacy + Patient/Caregiver Lives Touched = Impact in reducing the cancer burden. We know that as individuals, we can achieve a lot, but together, we are so much more.
The Chamber recognizes health care innovation as a catalyst for economic growth. Our Health and Life Sciences Action Team is a unique, cross-functional group of 120+ leaders working to leverage the region’s health care, life sciences, and technology assets to transform our 11-county community into the global leader in health care innovation.
