The future of cancer care at home: Findings from an American Cancer Society summit

Abstract

In February 2022, the White House announced the reignition of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative with the goals of reducing the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years and improving the experience of people and their families living with and surviving cancer. A core component of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative is the facilitation of multisector partnerships to solve the compelling challenges faced in cancer care delivery. The American Cancer Society (ACS) has a longstanding tradition of convening partners across the cancer landscape, most notably through conferences, partner meetings, advocacy coalitions, and coalescing of thought leaders through roundtables. For example, the ACS and several patient advocacy organizations, scientific organizations, and pharmaceutical partners came together in October 2022 to launch the new ACS National Breast Cancer Roundtable and the ACS National Cervical Cancer Roundtable as “all‐hands‐on‐deck” coalitions to reshape cancer care. These Roundtables aim to both (1) identify the leading challenges in detection and treatment within these cancers and (2) provide expert guidance to providers, patients, payers, and policy makers regarding evolutions needed to increase access and patient centricity of cancer care. Beyond disease‐specific issues, the ACS and its partners have also explored topics that span the cancer care continuum. Currently, much of the attention given to innovation in oncology is centered upon creating and delivering a rapidly expanding armamentarium of anticancer treatments. Efforts to develop more novel, personalized, and targeted therapies have been fruitful but also continue to further highlight issues related to access. How treatments are selected and delivered and how outcomes are monitored require additional focus. Furthermore, how such efforts align with increasing calls for patient centricity, meeting patients where they are both figuratively and literally, requires a national discussion. Herein, we describe the findings from the first effort of the ACS in convening national leaders across multiple stakeholders, including the provider, payer, government, and technology communities, to discuss cancer care delivery at home.