O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center Magazine Spring 2020 | Page 18

CONNECTING THE DOTS
The ‘signature’ line
In its move to revitalize the Cancer Service Line, UAB
Medicine recently designated it as one of its three
“signature” service lines. Jordan DeMoss, MSHA,
the vice president of the UAB Cancer Service Line,
explains that this designation will streamline care for
patients by unifying the historically stratified resources
of the hospital and the University into one cohesive
operational structure.
“We’re an academic medical center, so we always focus
on all three missions: research, education and patient
care,” DeMoss said. “But for the signature service lines,
it’s really about more closely integrating those three and
creating programs that are uniquely differentiated so we
can become just that – a signature program for the state
of Alabama and beyond.”
This distinction allows the Cancer Service Line to draw
from the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center’s diverse
set of resources, programs and experts to accomplish the
shared goals of the service line and the Cancer Center.
Sleckman adds that some of the challenges that many
hospitals, patients, providers and researchers face are
intrinsic to large academic medical centers across the
country but that embracing the idea of a dedicated, fully
integrated cancer service line is the key to solving many
of those problems.
“I think what the O’Neal Cancer Center brings to the
Cancer Service Line is not only the idea of using a
team-based approach to patient care, but also, now,
the opportunity to bring other activities into that care,”
Sleckman said. “The O’Neal Cancer Center is home to
so many basic science researchers who are working on
cancer and who want to understand more about how
what they’re doing impacts disease. Through the Cancer
Service Line, those researchers will have a disease
management team focused on treating the problems
they’re trying to solve, which also allows us to bring
other resources to the table, such as clinical trials and
community outreach and engagement.”
Prior to moving to UAB, Sleckman spent most of his
career developing integrated cancer programs at
institutions like the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell
Medicine and the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington
University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he witnessed the
impact of research-driven treatments and clinical trials
for cancer patients.
“Offering patients the opportunity to enroll in clinical
trials as part of their overall treatment plan is just one
example of what the O’Neal Cancer Center can do
through the Cancer Service Line to give patients a
genuinely comprehensive experience,” Sleckman said.
CANCER SERVICE LINE
STRATEGIC GOALS AND AIMS:
Deliver value to patients.
Provide timely access
to well-coordinated,
comprehensive care.
Coordinate with and support
the research and education
missions of the O’Neal
Cancer Center.
Monitor, manage and
improve the operating
margin of the service line.
Develop and sustain the
premier and preferred
cancer service line in
the Southeast.
“Clinical trials are now standard of care for cancer, and
they can and should be offered to every patient at UAB
who could benefit from them.”
Sleckman says it is imperative that patients understand
the life-saving potential of these clinical trials, as well as
the many other cancer therapies and treatments that are
available at UAB.
“If you are diagnosed with cancer and aren’t sure what to
do next, it’s OK,” Sleckman said. “You don’t have to know
exactly what to do. You just have to know where to go.
And if you have the option to go to the NCI-designated
O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB, where
you’d have access to the best multidisciplinary cancer
care and the latest cutting-edge trials, you should know
that it matters where you go first.”
16 O’NEAL COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER AT UAB