UArizona Cancer Center Honored with 2020 Innovator Award
The Association of Community Cancer Centers has honored the University of Arizona Cancer Center at Banner – University Medical Center Tucson with its 2020 Innovator Award.
The award recognizes forward-thinking Association of Community Cancer Centers Program members who have created innovative and replicable solutions while demonstrating the real-world impact on delivery of cost-effective, patient-centered care. The UArizona Cancer Center was recognized along with seven other awardees from across the country at the association’s annual conference, which was held virtually in September.
The Peter and Paula Fasseas Cancer Clinic at University of Arizona Cancer Center
To help ensure patient safety in the time of COVID-19, the UArizona Cancer Center created a multidisciplinary team that identified chemotherapy regimens administered in the inpatient setting that could be safely administered in an outpatient setting. The team created and implemented a transition plan that reduced inpatient medical resources and chemotherapy costs, decreased inpatient bed stay, lowered infection rates and improved quality of life. Watch this video showing how the team came together to shift chemo administration from an inpatient to outpatient setting.
“The shift in chemotherapy administration from inpatient to outpatient resulted in an important measurable decrease in overnight hospital stays and an impressive overall cost reduction for the system,” said Ali McBride, PharmD, MS, clinical coordinator of hematology/oncology at the UArizona Cancer Center and an assistant professor in the UArizona College of Pharmacy. “This team has developed a plan that can be replicated nationwide.”
Winners were selected based on the potential of their program to have a real-world impact on the delivery of cost-effective, patient-centered care with replicable solutions in the areas of care coordination and quality improvement, technology, patient engagement, innovative training and staffing models, the provision of supportive care services, and collaborative practice agreements.