Building Excellence

IMPROVING CARE THROUGH EDUCATION

For patients facing a cancer diagnosis, access to the most knowledgeable providers can make all the difference in the world. Yet for already overstretched professionals, staying current with rapid advancements in oncology care is challenging. That’s why the Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network (MCCAN) has built its mission on a fundamental principle: quality education isn’t a luxury — it’s the foundation of exceptional cancer care.

And the program’s growth proves it. As affiliate members have expressed an increased need for specialized oncology education, MCCAN has responded.

Humble Beginnings to Statewide Impact

“When the network started in 2006, we began with three affiliates that requested nursing education,” said Cheri Tolle, MAEd, CHES, administrative director of MCCAN. “Over the years, as we built an entire team devoted to education, we expanded our programs to include other providers, such as pharmacists, physicians, social workers, dietitians and physical therapists. It’s been a dream realized.”

The sophisticated, evidence-based education program, Tolle noted, serves multiple disciplines and offers in-person, hybrid and remote conferences, webinars, and asynchronous learning modules through an education portal.

Programs such as the MCCAN Oncology Grand Rounds, the Kentucky Hematology Oncology Pharmacy Symposium (KHOPS), the Kentucky Oncology Nurse Education Symposium (KONES) and the annual MCCAN Cancer Care Conference are well attended and offer education uniquely designed to each healthcare discipline. The staff also helps match a community provider with specific questions to an expert at UK HealthCare and will develop new programs upon request.

“We maintain flexibility so that we can tailor content for both large hospitals with robust education departments and small facilities with limited resources,” Tolle said.

Building the Dream Team

Growth in programming has required additional personnel. It’s been a careful, intentional approach to building the education team, ensuring each role addresses a distinct need. John Kim, education director, joined the team in 2019, followed by Melissa Darsey Coffey, program coordinator, in 2020, and Paige Harder, multimedia designer in 2021. Wesley Qualls, special project support, added his technical expertise in 2022.

“Our education focus began with leadership’s commitment to working across silos and fostering new ideas, creativity, and resourcefulness that contribute to the larger effort,” said Kim.

“The team’s diversity of skills and experience creates a collaborative synergy that is reflected in the growth of educational programming during the past five years.”

Not even the COVID-19 pandemic could slow MCCAN’s education movement. Because the network had already been offering virtual programming for years before the pandemic, they were ahead of the curve. The transition was remarkably smooth. MCCAN was able to launch a weekly virtual educational program focused on COVID-19 and cancer within two weeks of the shutdown.

Innovation Through Resourcefulness

Some of MCCAN’s most impressive educational achievements have come from thinking creatively and across departments, Kim said. For example, MCCAN was able to save considerable costs in fees by becoming an in-house provider for nurse continuing education through the Kentucky Board of Nursing — an idea proposed by Susan Reffett, MSN, RN, CNOR, MCCAN quality director.

“It was a grueling process,” Reffett said. “Our education and quality teams work very closely together to get things done, whether it’s an initiative like becoming an approved nursing continuing education site or developing programs to address new Commission on Cancer standards. I always say that you can’t have education without quality, and vice versa.”

“This was a forward-thinking idea,” Kim said, “and we now have our own in-house Learning Management System with the ability to host recorded presentations on the MCCAN Resource Portal and issue our own nursing CEs. Additionally, I want to brag on Wesley who figured out a way to automate both the assessment grading and certificate process. This was a major achievement that enabled our online learning process to become more efficient.” In the past two years, the Resource Portal has been restructured and given a facelift, making it more user-friendly and intuitive.

Harder helps produce professional visuals and videos for the portal and for conferences, as well as videos for health care professionals that promote clinical trials. “It can be difficult to find patients that fit the criteria for a clinical trial,” she said, “so we started making short videos that we can share with our sites or that physicians can use when they visit an affiliate. These videos are easy to understand and we hope they will raise awareness of Markey trials and help providers to enroll appropriate patients.”

Responding to Real Needs

MCCAN’s educational programming doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. The team conducts formal annual assessments and post-activity evaluations and asks affiliates about topics of interests and emerging needs. This responsive approach led to the development of the hospitalist education program (see sidebar).

Content development comes with considerable input from many people such as Holly Chitwood, DNP, APRN, assistant professor in UK’s College of Nursing. “I always say I’m not really here by accident,” Chitwood said.

Originally in school to become a social worker, Chitwood’s heart was in nursing. When her fatherin- law died quickly and unexpectedly from an aggressive cancer, he gave her a gift that sent her on a different path. “He not only made me promise to go to school for nursing, he left the money to make it financially possible.” Eventually, as a faculty member in the UK College of Nursing, she proposed projects that fulfilled her passion to educate oncology nurses.

“I met the MCCAN team and we just connected right away,” she said. “We can talk through anything and come up with new ideas to deliver our messages.” Multiple affiliate sites report using MCCAN’s Oncology Nurse Education Fundamentals 101 modules as a first training tool for newly onboarded nurses. The asynchronous modules allow learning at the staff member’s own pace, a crucial flexibility for busy clinical settings.

With an emphasis on building relationships across colleges and with outside organizations, courses that address new Commission on Cancer (CoC) standards are also available to affiliates. By partnering with the BREATHE Online Tobacco Treatment Specialist (TTS) training located within the UK College of Nursing, for example, MCCAN helps ensure that a TTS at an affiliate site is trained with evidence-based skills to treat tobacco dependence across a range of settings. The new CoC standard 5.9 “Smoking Cessation for Patients with Cancer” requires that new patients be screened for current smoking and referred to smoking cessation treatment. Referral to a certified TTS is one option that meets the requirement.

Darsey Coffey emphasized the importance of the MCCAN quality coordinators who work directly with the affiliates. “Our quality coordinators work intimately with our sites,” she said. “They ask what their needs are and get feedback. It has created a very homogenous relationship.”

Collaboration ensures that patients with cancer throughout Kentucky, even in remote, rural settings and underserved areas, receive the same evidence-based care as those in large, urban centers. “Through MCCAN, the partnership that exists between pharmacists at our affiliates and at UK means access to specialized expertise, treatment protocols, clinical decision support and opportunities for consultation on challenging cases,” said Philip Schwieterman, PharmD, senior pharmacy director for Oncology, IDS and Gene Therapy at UK. “It’s helping to keep care close to home for these patients.”

Collaboration ensures that cancer patients throughout Kentucky, even in remote, rural settings and underserved areas, receive the same evidence-based care as those in large, urban centers. “Through MCCAN, the partnership that exists between phamacists at our affiliates and at UK means access to specialized expertise, treatment protocols, clinical decision support and opportunities for consultation on challenging cases,” said Philip Schwieterman, PharmD, senior pharmacy director Oncology, IDS and Gene Therapy at UK. “It’s helping to keep care close to home for these patients.”

Looking Ahead

As MCCAN moves toward its 20th year, now serving 21 sites across Kentucky, its education program exemplifies what is possible when quality, innovation and a genuine responsiveness to needs guide every decision.