Main Line Health has access to nearly 1 million people and its service area includes Western Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware Counties of Pennsylvania. Annually, MLH provides care for ~ 3100 new cancer cases, of which approximately 50% of patients are 65 years or older. Main Line Health (MLH) has participated as a NCI CCOP for the past 20 years and has the infrastructure in place to become a NCORP Community Site, Strengthening this infrastructure, MLH is transitioning to a One Program, Multiple Sites cancer care organizational model where oversight by a single service line leadership team (clinical and administrative) is accountable for service line performance. Main Line Health long-term goals include: continue to provide state of the art multidisciplinary treatment that improves outcomes and quality of life for our patients; identify and address disparities of care and advancing standards of care. To accomplish these goals, MLH NCORP will continue providing access to NCI-approved clinical trials for cancer prevention, control, screening and treatment. Additionally, MLH NCORP will educate healthcare colleagues and patients about the importance and impact of clinical trials, helping to reduce barriers to accrual MLH will evaluate its cancer care processes, learning what factors outside of a patient's cancer diagnosis may create barriers or impact a patient's well-being. Although Main Line Health does have internal assessment in place, as a NCORP Community site, MLH will be able to evaluate its cancer care and services on a larger scale and report these findings to the physician and patient community and transform care. Main Line Health's existing relationships with the following Research Bases: CALGB (Alliance), ECOG, GOG, IVID Anderson, NSABP, RTOG, and Wake Forest University, help ensure a study portfolio complementary of MLH cancer population and access to important cancer care delivery questions.
The landscape of medicine is changing, with stronger emphasis on prevention and increasing quality of care, while decreasing its cost. The combination of bringing clinical trials to our patient and physician community, as well as participating in cancer care delivery research, is essential for educating and implementing change for MLH patients, physicians and community.
