Acquiring a Physician Practice?
By Amanda Henson, MSHA, MBA, FACHE

As consolidation continues within the oncology marketplace, many physicians are seeking relationships with hospitals ranging from joint ventures to physician services agreements to hospital employment. Acquisition of a physician practice can bring both benefits and challenges to a hospital-based cancer program. Key to success for both the hospital and the practice are physician engagement and communication.

Read our cover story online.

Highlights from this Issue:

When St. Luke's Mountain States Tumor Institute (MSTI) failed to meet its clinical trial accrual goals in 2011, the MSTI Adult Clinical Trial Research staff took action. Internal evaluation helped identify inefficiencies and develop a new study review process that has improved the quality and efficiency of new study review, supported research staff accountability to the process, and improved the number of new studies for review. Learn more and view process flowcharts.

Affiliation can allow a cancer program to expand access to clinical trials and deliver quality patient care. However, due diligence is an important step in the process. Here are six critical dimensions of cancer clinical trials that should be assessed as part of any affiliation evaluation process. They can also provide a framework to continually assess the value of the relationship.

Multidisciplinary clinics are time and resource intensive and consequently riddled with potential pitfalls. In An Integrated Approach to Lung Cancer in a Community Setting, learn how two competing hospitals, a freestanding cancer center, and private practice physicians have come together to develop a successful multidisciplinary thoracic cancer clinic in Erie, Pa.

In 2009 the Edward Hospital established a multidisciplinary thoracic oncology clinic with a nurse practitioner serving as clinic coordinator. Then, in 2012 this framework was used to initiate a lung screening program to ensure patients meet NCCN screening criteria. Find out how the program evolved.

Related Content:

• Hospital and Practice Alignment
  • Transitions & Transactions
• Clinical Trials
  • Using an Online Tool to Understand and Improve Clinical Trial Accrual
  • Nuts & Bolts of Clinical Research Billing
  • AMC Affiliation with a Community Cancer Center: Putting the Pieces Together
• Developing a Multidisciplinary Care Team
  • A Culture of Partnership

More From ACCC:

• Improving Quality Care in Small-Population Cancers (SPC)
  • The SPC project focuses on giving community-based cancer care providers the information they need to better care for their patients with small-population cancers, also referred to as low-incidence or "forgotten" cancers. Look for a special supplement, "Improving Quality Care in Small-Population Cancers," with your May/June Oncology Issues, and learn about the SPC Community Resource Centers.
• Shift in Site of Care, Real of Fiction?
  • View video of ACCC's timely town hall panel discussion of current issues surrounding shifts in the site of care and the resulting impact on patient access, provider process, and the distribution, prescription, and payment for innovative drugs and biologics. Take our poll.
• Lung Cancer Screening Programs.
  • Listen to an archived ACCC members-only conference call that explores reasons for and challenges to establishing a low-dose CT lung cancer screening program.