The American Society for Radiation Oncology’s (ASTRO) Board of Directors has announced three additions to the Society’s management team: Emily Wilson has been named Executive Vice President; Dave Adler has been promoted to Vice President of Advocacy; and Anne Hubbard has been promoted to Director of Health Policy.
“Congratulations to Ms. Wilson, Mr. Adler, and Ms. Hubbard for their extraordinary achievements during their combined 18-plus years at ASTRO,” said Chief Executive Officer Laura I. Thevenot. “Health policy, quality, and advocacy are among the top five priorities identified in our 2014 member survey; they will meet those priorities exceptionally well. They will play a critical role in ASTRO’s continued success to strengthen services to our members, to the radiation oncology specialty, and to the more than one million cancer patients who receive radiation therapy each year.”
In her new role as Executive Vice President, Ms. Wilson will provide strategic vision to ASTRO’s Board of Directors, CEO, and staff to ensure continued success across the organization to meet the goals of ASTRO’s Strategic Plan. She will also continue to oversee ASTRO’s Clinical Affairs division which leads important safety, quality, and policy initiatives that support ASTRO members. They include the soon-to-be launched APEx (Accreditation Program for Excellence) and quality efforts including a Cloud-based Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRSwizard), Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise-Radiation Oncology (IHE-RO), Guidelines, Best Practices, and White Papers. Ms. Wilson began at ASTRO as Director of Government Relations, where her efforts were instrumental in averting cuts to radiation oncology in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and Medicare reimbursement cuts to radiation oncology in 2009 and 2010. As Vice President of Advocacy and Clinical Affairs since 2010, she formed the Clinical Affairs and Quality Council for ASTRO’s Board of Directors and has played a key role in ASTRO’s Target Safely campaign, which includes launching RO-ILS: Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System, Choosing Wisely, PQRSwizard, and IHE-RO.
In his new role as Vice President of Advocacy, Mr. Adler will oversee both ASTRO’s Government Relations and Health Policy departments. These departments are responsible for ASTRO’s legislative and regulatory advocacy with federal policymakers, including the White House, Congress, agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services [such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)], and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Mr. Adler will also lead ASTRO efforts to collaborate with medical specialty societies, patient advocacy organizations, and other health-care coalitions. Mr. Adler was previously ASTRO’s Director of Government Relations. He was responsible for leading several significant advocacy campaigns protecting radiation oncology Medicare reimbursement, advancing efforts to end abuse of the physician self-referral law in cancer treatment, and developing ASTRO’s payment reform action plan.
Ms. Hubbard, promoted to Director of Health Policy, first joined ASTRO as Assistant Director of Health Policy. In her new role, Ms. Hubbard leads ASTRO’s efforts regarding the economics of managing a radiation oncology practice, as well as the development of ASTRO’s payment reform initiative. She serves as ASTRO’s staff advisor to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) Editorial Panel and the Relative Value Scale (RVS) Update Committee. Additionally, Ms. Hubbard represents ASTRO at the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Advisory Panel on Hospital Outpatient Payment Meeting and works closely with the AMA and other medical specialty societies. ■
