Conn. system joins new Sloan-Kettering cancer-care alliance

On the heels of the Institute of Medicine calling U.S. cancer care “increasingly chaotic and costly,” Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York is starting an alliance of community cancer providers. It named Hartford HealthCare, a five-hospital system in Connecticut, as the inaugural member.

The Manhattan-based comprehensive cancer institution said physicians and leaders in the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Alliance will work together to improve cancer care and clinical research through the use of disease management teams, on-site observations of new techniques, sharing of educational resources, quality and outcomes research and expanded access to Memorial Sloan-Kettering's clinical trials.

“Through the MSK Cancer Alliance—and in collaboration with Hartford HealthCare as a pioneering member—we are looking to create a new model to address the fundamental challenge of providing high-quality cancer care in a wider population of patients,” Dr. Craig Thompson, president and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, said in a news release.

The IOM concluded that community oncologists don't always follow clinical treatment guidelines and struggle to keep up with genomic advances that have made treatment more complex and more expensive.

The alliance seeks to address many of the issues raised in the IOM report through collaboration and bring cost-effective cancer care to community settings, where most cancer patients are treated.

“Currently, the vast majority of cancer care in the United States is delivered by community oncologists, but cancer advances can take years to be adopted in a community setting,” Dr. José Baselga, physician-in-chief of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, said in the release. “We want to rapidly accelerate the pace of integrating the latest advances of cancer care into a community setting.”

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