Deborah Mayer, PhD, RN, AOCN, FAAN, director of cancer survivorship at UNC Lineberger, was a panelist at the Oncology Nursing Society Policy Summit on Approaches to Patient-Centered Care at the National Press Club in Washington on Oct. 17.
Mayer presented at the ONS-Association of American Cancer Institutes joint session, “Precision Medicine and Cancer Clinical Trials: A Nursing Leadership Perspective.”
Precision cancer treatments typically require novel and complex clinical trials to find the best match between the tumor DNA changes or mutations and a treatment targeted for that mutation, which can pose challenges for the patient clinical care research team. Mayer and her fellow panelists, Andrea M. Denicoff, RN, MS, ANP, from the National Cancer Institute, and Helen Peck, RN, MA, OCN, CCRP, from the University of Miami Sylvester Cancer Center, spoke on best practices for cancer center nursing leaders who oversee clinical work flows and challenges from these trials. The talks addressed timely trial activation and recruitment of all eligible patients at both the main cancer center and community network practice sites, as well as promoting staff education, retention and maintaining quality patient outcomes.