In a fast-changing oncology landscape, doctors are demanding this kind of collaboration and support so they can easily stay on top of new evidence and new treatment approaches and deliver exactly the care their patients need.— Kevin Fitzpatrick
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ASCO announced that a total of 58 practices in 39 states and the District of Columbia have joined CancerLinQ™, ASCO’s big data initiative to rapidly improve the quality of care for people with cancer. CancerLinQ is already up and running in a number of practices and drawing on approximately three-quarters of a million patient records from across the United States.
CancerLinQ LLC, a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of ASCO, also announced a collaborative agreement with the Cancer Informatics for Cancer Centers (CI4CC), representing senior informatics leaders and chief data scientists at the nation’s National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers and other major medical and research institutions. This new collaboration follows the recent announcement that CancerLinQ has joined a strategic relationship with SAP on its SAP Connected Health platform.
Collaboration Equals Improved Quality
“We’re proud that CancerLinQ is in such demand within the oncology community, and we’re excited about what this means for our patients,” said ASCO Immediate Past-President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO. “For the first time ever, we’re truly combining the expertise of the nation’s oncologists, data scientists, researchers, and other professionals, so that patients can receive high-quality care no matter where they live.”
CancerLinQ will allow cancer care providers to improve the quality and value of care by analyzing millions of cancer patient medical records, uncovering patterns and trends, and measuring their care against that of their peers and recommended guidelines. The CancerLinQ platform is the only effort of its kind being driven by a nonprofit, physician organization, and it leverages the combined expertise of 40,000 of the world’s leading oncologists who comprise ASCO’s membership.
Data Science and Informatics Partnership
CancerLinQ’s new collaborations will expand the range of providers, patients, and stakeholders who can benefit from the data-driven insights. The most recent joint initiative is with CI4CC, a nonprofit organization that provides a national forum for academically focused research from informatics scientists, as well as for engagement of senior cancer informatics and technology leaders at academic cancer centers around the world and the 70 U.S. NCI-funded cancer centers.
This initiative will bring the nation’s leading clinical, genomics, and biomedical informaticists, academicians, and data scientists together with the oncology community to help improve cancer care. CancerLinQ and CI4CC will launch joint initiatives to engage informatics leaders nationally, establish an informatics advisory council for CancerLinQ comprising leading experts from cancer centers across the nation, and place a CancerLinQ representative on a CI4CC Leadership Board. The initiative will facilitate cross-participation in a variety of avenues, including key forums, programmatic development, and alignment strategic opportunities to exchange best practices, break down silos, and accelerate the transformation of patient data into meaningful insights to impact care.
CancerLinQ Joins SAP Connected Health Partnership
CancerLinQ runs on SAP Connected Health built on the SAP HANA® platform, a flexible, multipurpose data management and application platform created by SAP. On May 18, 2016, SAP announced that CancerLinQ LLC would be one of the first strategic relationships on SAP Connected Health, which will grow to include an ecosystem of partners that influence every aspect of the cycle of care—from payers to providers to researchers to life sciences companies. CancerLinQ and other Connected Health partners together aim to accelerate the development and delivery of innovative, patient-centered solutions for improving health outcomes, reducing costs, and delivering connected health-care services on the SAP Connected Health platform.
Participating Practices Reflect Spectrum of Oncology Care
CancerLinQ has completed agreements with 58 oncology practices, representing 1,000 providers under contract in 39 states and the District of Columbia, and continues to actively recruit practices nationwide. Participants range from small private practices to some of the nation’s leading cancer centers including, most recently, Intermountain Healthcare.
“CancerLinQ is beginning to fulfill its mission of empowering the oncology community to improve quality of care and patient outcomes,” said CancerLinQ LLC Chief Executive Officer Kevin Fitzpatrick. “In a fast-changing oncology landscape, doctors are demanding this kind of collaboration and support so they can easily stay on top of new evidence and new treatment approaches and deliver exactly the care their patients need.”
CancerLinQ is supported in part through the Conquer Cancer Foundation, whose generous donors have helped make the system possible. Major supporters include Amgen; Astellas; AstraZeneca; Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc; Cancer Treatment Centers of America; Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation; Genentech BioOncology; HELSINN; Janssen Oncology; Lilly; Raj Mantena, RPh; Novartis Oncology; Pfizer Oncology; Thomas G. Roberts, Jr, MD, and Susan M. DaSilva; and Susan G. Komen.
CancerLinQ is a project of CancerLinQ LLC. For more information, please visit CancerLinQ.org. ■
