ABSTRACT
Cancer advocates and researchers share the same goal of driving science forward to create new therapies to cure more patients. The power of combining cancer researchers and advocates has become of increased importance due to their complementary expertise. Therefore, advocacy is a critical component of grant structures and has become embedded into the Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C) applications. To date, the optimal way to combine these skillsets and experiences to benefit the cancer community is currently unknown. The Saint Baldrick's Foundation (SBF)-SU2C now called St. Baldrick's Empowering Pediatric Immunotherapies for Childhood Cancer (EPICC) Team is comprised of a collaborative network across nine institutions in the United States and Canada. Since SU2C encourages incorporating advocacy into the team structure, we have assembled a diverse team of advocates and scientists by nominating a young investigator (YI) and advocate from each site. In order to further bridge this interaction beyond virtual monthly and yearly in person meetings, we have developed a questionnaire and conducted interviews. The questionnaire is focused on understanding each member's experience at the intersection between science/advocacy, comparing to previous experiences, providing advice on incorporating advocacy into team science and discussing how we can build on our work. Through creating a YI and advocate infrastructure, we have cultivated a supportive environment for meaningful conversation that impacts the entire research team. We see this as a model for team science by combining expertise to drive innovation forward and positively impact pediatric cancer patients, and perhaps those with adult malignancies. Significance: Questionnaire results show both advocates and YI's see this structure to be valuable and beneficial. YI's communicated their research to a non-scientific audience and learned advocate's experience. This was their first advocacy experience for most YIs. Advocates learned more about the research being conducted to provide hope. They can also aid with fundraising, publicity and lobbying. This collaboration improves science communication, designing patient-friendly clinical trials and sharing experience across institutions.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The Joint Commission requires ongoing professional practice evaluation--or what Cincinnati Children's Medical Center (CCHMC) has termed performance-based privileging (PBP)--for the medical staff reappointment and reprivileging process. BUILDING A SYSTEM: CCHMC is a 475-bed academic medical center affiliated with the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Medical staff members are reappointed every two years, with divisions having staggered reappointment dates throughout the two-year cycle. In 2004, CCHMC devised a model in which the 38 divisions retained responsibility for development of measures; collection, maintenance, display, and monitoring of individual provider performance data; and sharing of data with providers, while medical staff services retained responsibility for ensuring compliance with timelines, technical assistance related to measure development, and the collection and display of data. Each clinical division developed a preliminary list of measures. The original PBP process was tested in 2005 and has been revised several times in response to division feedback. DISCUSSION: Members of all 38 clinical divisions have now been reappointed to the medical staff at least twice using measures that have become more robust, meaningful, and outcome oriented. Many measures support organizational or divisional quality imoprovement aims, are evidence based, or build on initiatives sponsored by external bodies and specialty societies. Examples of measures are shared via the PBP intranet, personal consultations, and an annual provider performance improvement conference. Yet, challenges remain, such as the absence of real-time, provider-specific, risk-adjusted data and the difficulty of attributing provider-specific outcomes when most complex and high-risk care is managed by a team.
