National Influence
MARKEY’S IMPACT EXTENDS
FAR BEYOND KENTUCKY’S BORDERS
Markey Collaboration Expands Cancer Care Access for U.S. Veterans
A new collaboration between the UK Markey Cancer Center and the Lexington VA Health Care System is one of the first of its kind in the nation.
Lexington VA Health Care is the 20th hospital to join the UK Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network in 2024, providing expanded access to specialized cancer care for veterans. The collaboration is one of the first in the nation between a Veterans Affairs system and a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center like Markey.
“The VA is the largest cancer care provider in the U.S. We are thrilled to be working more closely with them to ensure veterans receive the best possible cancer care,” said Timothy Mullett, MD, medical director of the Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network.
The Lexington VA Health Care System serves 83,000 veterans across Central Kentucky. The Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network provides accessible, high-quality cancer care and support for hospitals around the state. This new collaboration streamlines referrals between Markey and the VA, improves access to clinical trials, and offers veterans specialized cancer care closer to home.
“The VA looked to Markey because of its status as Kentucky’s only Comprehensive Cancer Center,” said Cheri Tolle, MAEd, CHES, the affiliate network administrative director.
As a member of the affiliate network, Lexington VA Health Care System will receive assistance from Markey in pursuing Commission on Cancer (CoC) accreditation. Markey will also provide training and support to VA physicians and supportive care staff.
In addition, the collaboration allows Markey to share the affiliate network’s successes with other parts of the VA system. Mullett, a veteran, sits on a VA committee and recently participated in a panel discussion with the VA’s national director. Markey staff have also learned more about the VA’s teleoncology program, a service that Markey is also exploring.
“We’re learning from the VA, and hopefully they’ll be able to learn from us,” Mullett said.
MARKEY HOSTS
IMPORTANT CANCER CONFERENCES
The Markey Cancer Center hosted and supported two significant national and international cancer conferences in 2024.
The HPV Cancer Center Consortium national meeting was held in April in Lexington by Markey and the National Cancer Institute. The annual conference focused on raising awareness about HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccination.
“Researchers at Markey and across the country are working to understand how to get more children vaccinated against HPV,” said Pamela Hull, PhD, associate director of Population Science and Community Impact at Markey. “By bringing researchers and healthcare providers to Markey, we were able to work toward developing innovative strategies and ultimately reducing the burden of HPVrelated diseases.”
Lexington was selected as the host city and Markey supported the International Cancer Education Conference (ICEC) in September. ICEC is the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Education, the Cancer Patient Education Network and the European Association for Cancer Education. Markey staff provided logistics and led the conference planning committee.
The conference highlighted unique Markey programs to an international audience:
- The Appalachian Career Training in Oncology (ACTION) Program that encourages young people to pursue careers in the cancer field
- A lung cancer screening education program administered through community health workers
- A program to address disparities in home radon testing and mitigation in rural Kentucky
“It was a great national opportunity to show off the Markey Cancer Center in Lexington and also welcome everyone to the Bluegrass State,” said Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network administrative director Cheri Tolle, MAEd, CHES.
EVERS ELECTED
TO NATIONAL CANCER GROUP’S
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
B. Mark Evers, MD, director of the UK Markey Cancer Center, was recently elected to the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) Board of Directors. This prestigious appointment recognizes Evers’ exceptional leadership and contributions to cancer research and treatment. Under Evers’ guidance, Markey became Kentucky’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI) Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2023.
“The AACI represents the top-tier academic and cancer research centers in the U.S. and Canada,” Evers said. “I’m eager to contribute to the AACI’s mission to enhance the impact of these renowned institutions.”
KENTUCKY’S CANCER CARE
SETS NATIONAL STANDARD
Timothy Mullett, MD, recently concluded his term as chair of the Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). He leveraged the UK Markey Cancer Center’s expertise to advance cancer care nationwide during his tenure.
Mullett is medical director of the Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network, which requires CoC accreditation. Under Mullett’s leadership, the CoC developed a pathway for accreditation for rural hospitals.
“There is a significant disparity in rural cancer programs being CoC accredited, and Kentucky seems to have solved that,” Mullett said.
The work done by Mullett and others at Markey to provide tobacco treatment for cancer patients also led to a national treatment initiative that is now a standard for all CoC programs.
MARKEY NAVIGATION CHAPTER
WINS NATIONAL AWARD
The UK Markey Cancer Center-led chapter of the Academy of Oncology Nurse and Patient Navigators (AONN+) recently won a national award for its leadership in innovative programming, collaboration and professional commitment.
The Kentucky Oncology Navigation Network (KONN) is the only AONN+ chapter in the Commonwealth providing resources, education and support to staff who offer navigation services to cancer patients. Markey Cancer Center Affiliate Network quality assurance coordinators Sabrena Fulkerson, BSN, RN, and Kristal Vaughan, RN, founded the KONN chapter, which has membership representation from Markey and its affiliate network hospitals. Within Kentucky, there are over 70 hospital members throughout the state.
Creating the chapter positioned Fulkerson and Vaughan as leaders in oncology navigation.
“We’ve forged strong relationships with the AONN+ leadership. We’ve also played a pivotal role in helping other states establish their own chapters, most recently in South Carolina,” Fulkerson said.
“The more that you can reach across state lines, the more you learn and the more quickly you can collaborate to get patients the resources they need,” Vaughan said.
CANCER INFOCUS: A POWERFUL TOOL FROM MARKEY
USED BY CANCER CENTERS NATIONWIDE
A tool created by the Community Impact Office in 2022 – Cancer InFocus – gives vital data insights to researchers and community organizations. It has caught the attention of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and led to a UK Markey Cancer Center study documenting undiagnosed cancer cases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cancer InFocus combines the gathering of publicly available data with interactive visualization dashboards. Users can identify areas with a high prevalence of certain cancer risk factors, monitor cancer incidence and mortality rates, assess resource availability, and more.
Nationwide Impact
Cancer InFocus pulls over 150 metrics from national sources and assembles datasets curated by cancer center catchment areas or U.S. state. These datasets can be accessed online at cancerinfocus.org. Code for turning these datasets into interactive dashboards is available to all U.S. cancer centers through a no-cost licensing agreement with the University of Kentucky. Markey’s own dashboard—Cancer InFocus: Kentucky—can be found at cancerinfocus.uky.edu.
Over 30 institutions, including one-third of the NCIDesignated Cancer Centers, use Cancer InFocus. Markey is even building a custom version for the NCI’s Center for Cancer Research.
“Cancer InFocus is a way for Markey to contribute to the fight against cancer around the country and be a resource for other cancer centers,” said Todd Burus, a data scientist with the Community Impact Office. “The less time and resources hospitals use pulling data and building software programs, the more they have to invest in reducing the cancer burden in their communities.”
Cancer and COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact people’s lives long after the virus first appeared. A Markey study published in JAMA Oncology showed that more than 134,000 cancer cases went undiagnosed in the U.S. during the first 10 months of the pandemic.
Burus was the study’s lead author. Krystle A. Lang Kuhs, PhD, MPH, an associate professor in the College of Public Health and co-leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at the Markey Cancer Center, was the senior author.
“Those cases will get diagnosed eventually, and they could potentially overwhelm the health care system,” Kuhs said. “They’re probably going to show up at a later stage than they would have normally, so they’re going to be more complicated to treat. This has a real potential to increase cancer-related mortality.”
Data-driven Research
Burus leveraged his day-to-day work with Cancer InFocus and his talent for pulling data sets together for the research paper.
“Markey supported the vision of Cancer InFocus and provided the tools to put those national data sets together,” Kuhs said. “Cancer InFocus is having unintended positive impacts and allowing us to do things we wouldn’t have normally been able to do.”
Almost 5,000 media outlets cited the article, and it was in the top 99% of all papers for the attention it received.
While the study was not the first paper to discuss COVID’s effects on cancer, it was the first written in accessible language for a lay audience, Kuhs noted.
