If there’s one thing I know about the Penn Medicine team, it’s that in the face of unexpected challenges, we always rise up to help even when most wouldn’t. Who runs into a storm? Penn Medicine employees! In early August, a tornado with winds topping 115 miles per hour, tore the roof off of a daycare facility at Doylestown Hospital. Fortunately for the children and their teachers it was next to the Penn Radiation Oncology Doylestown practice. Usually our colleagues are providing incredibly advanced care to our cancer patients, but on this day they became heroes of a different sort. Once they secured their building which was also damaged by the tornado, our staff sprang into action, heading into the severely damaged day care facility to lead the children and teachers to safety, sheltering them from the storm in the radiation oncology vaults until the first responders arrived.
Quick thinking, creativity, and extraordinary compassion. Their actions that day are emblematic of what cancer care at Penn Medicine brings to patients every single day. It’s no surprise that the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) officially received its “exceptional” designation from the National Cancer Institute, for the third time, the very same week that storm hit.
The NCI has its own specialized criteria to make that call. But, to me, it’s our ability to connect which makes cancer care across Penn Medicine exceptional every day. We connect in ways that are more than just medicine. We’re people who care. Running in to rescue kids during a storm, offering virtual support groups for patients to process their disease and healing through writing, or singing soulful music to bring joy to a patient’s day — it’s all part of what we do to connect, person-to-person, with those in our care.
Our connectivity across Penn Medicine means we can deliver the best care, too. Patients who encounter Penn Medicine anywhere in our system, across the region, have access to the most advanced clinical trials for new treatments, including new therapies pioneered by our researchers every day. Our electronic medical record system knits their story together in real-time and ensures their safety and a cohesive plan of care, no matter where they’re cared for across our system.
The connections between research and clinical care for our cancer patients are among the closest that exist anywhere. In our translational centers of excellence (TCEs), where we’ve invested to support the boldest ideas for new treatments and cures, we have research-oriented nurse practitioners, social workers, and physicians who work together, daily, to understand and address what our patients need in step with the advancement of science every day. Dr. Bob Vonderheide, director of the ACC, is fond of saying that our mission is to deliver tomorrow’s cures today. It’s an ambitious charge that simply wouldn’t be possible without the incredible collaboration that defines us as an institution.
These connections matter because we believe the people here have what it takes to make a difference, when we do it together. This commitment to innovation is our ultimate connection to helping patients wherever they are — in our treatment rooms, across the parking lot, and around the world. That’s the true meaning of exceptional.
Abramson Cancer Center Earns ‘Exceptional’ Rating Via Virtual NCI Review
As doctors get used to the reality of examining patients via telemedicine, they’ve also had to learn to pass their own examinations virtually. The Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) passed its most recent test with flying colors, as the National Cancer Institute (NCI) once again rated it as “exceptional,” the highest possible rating for an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. This is the third straight “exceptional” rating for the ACC, following similar honors in 2010 and 2015. The distinction follows an extensive peer-review process for the ACC’s five-year competitive research support grant, which funds work across the center’s research and clinical care missions. The recommended funding level for the renewed grant also places the ACC among the top 10 recipients in the country.
This year’s evaluation process was virtual, due to COVID-19. While that was certainly different than past years, the NCI and the ACC worked together to pull it off without a hitch.
“All the hard work from the NCI to conduct a virtual site visit of this scale, and without delay, speaks volumes to the national commitment and vital imperative to continue cancer research even during the pandemic,” said Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, director of the ACC.
The NCI also renewed the ACC’s status as one of only 51 “comprehensive” centers in the U.S. and just three in Pennsylvania. The designation is awarded to institutions that not only meet rigorous standards for state-of-the-art research across broad areas of research on cancer prevention and treatment, multidisciplinary laboratory, clinical, and population-based research, and more. The evaluation included scientific review and assessment of essential features of a cancer center, which also included facilities, scientific leadership, and the level of collaboration and translation of science to innovative cancer care.
Members of the ACC have led or co-led studies that resulted in 11 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals of cancer therapies since 2017, ranging from immunotherapy to targeted drugs to robotic surgery. A spirit of collaboration fuels this work, with multidisciplinary teams of scientists and clinicians working in multiple Translational Centers of Excellence (TCE) to drive discovery and translation to the clinic. In each active TCE, basic discovery has led to active clinical trials that are moving to the national stage.
The ACC also has a particular focus on addressing disparities in cancer care — specifically within the ACC’s Community Outreach and Engagement program, an effort that has reached tens of thousands of residents and health care providers. A major accomplishment has been increasing access to cancer prevention, screening, care, and enrollment in clinical trials, particularly among Black patients in the community.
Just as the NCI evaluation went ahead in the midst of the pandemic, ACC’s world-class cancer care for all patients has likewise continued unabated. Since March, the ACC has kept almost every appointment for patients receiving radiation therapy, including at the Roberts Proton Therapy Center. Chemotherapy infusions have continued, and in April, the first full month of the Philadelphia region’s shutdown, Penn treated more adult patients with CAR T therapy — a gene-based cancer treatment pioneered and developed at the ACC — than in any month on record. With enhanced safety protocols in place and options for follow-up consultations via telemedicine, oncologists are urging everyone not to pass over crucial cancer screening tests, such as mammograms or colonoscopies, to ensure cancer is caught while it’s most treatable.
“We’re honored that the NCI has once again recognized our efforts in striving to reach our goal of embodying a science-driven, patient-focused comprehensive cancer center, where we work every day to develop tomorrow’s therapies today,” Vonderheide said.