Speaker 0: Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Elizabeth Gregerson, a reporter here at Becker's, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Corey Jones, AVP of oncology services at Banner Health on the podcast today. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm so grateful to share your insights with our podcast audience. Before I dive into my questions, could I ask you to introduce yourself and just tell us a bit about Banner Health and your role with the oncology line specifically?

Speaker 1: Thank you, Elizabeth. I appreciate the opportunity and and having me today. I am, again, as you indicated, Corey Jones. I'm the ABP of the oncology service line at Banner Health. So we're one of the largest nonprofit health care systems in the country.

We have a provider sponsored health insurance program that we serve over three and a half million, people. We have 33 hospitals and over 450 care services across the the states of Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, and Nebraska. That includes physician groups, imaging services, retail pharmacy, rehabilitation physical therapy, so the whole gamut of services that are provided here. As part of my role, I actually oversee the oncology services that are related to the BannerMD Anderson Cancer Center program, which falls under Banner. And it is among, it is located across 10 different sites.

Again, we focus on specifically services in Arizona and, Colorado. We are partnered with MD Anderson, which is one of the leading cancer centers across the country where we really are sharing and providing best practices and protocols and delivering cancer care services. It's been a relationship that we're very excited to be a part of with that partnership over the last ten plus years.

Speaker 0: Perfect. Thank you. Yeah. I I think that partnership is such a a wonderful one to highlight, so I thank you for sharing that and kind of cluing our listeners in on what that relationship looks like. You know, our audience might be specialized in oncology, but they might come from a different background, be more administrative or, you know, across all the other service lines at health systems across The US.

Zooming in on oncology, I'd love to hear from your perspective what major trends or innovations are you following right now in the oncology space?

Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's really exciting what's happening within the therapeutic innovations, specifically about how care is being or how cancer is being treated, specifically with new drugs and obviously new technologies. I think it's really giving, our physicians an opportunity to really kind of fight this these diseases with new kind of tools and obviously ways of of dealing with this, disease. And I think the therapeutic specifically as we look about targeted therapies and immunotherapies and how those are being leveraged to support, the care delivery is obviously changing the landscape. Of course, there's a lot of different indirect, impacts of that related to costs, of course, that obviously have an influence on that and how we actually are receiving that or providing that care.

But that's clearly an area of great opportunity and excitement, I think, that, is changing the landscape. Of course, we also know, like, how people are actually receiving care or how care is managed specifically, when we think about closer to home, when we think about virtual telemedicine, how that's applying to not only, providing or monitoring care, but also how to provide care closer to patients where they actually live. So I think that technology associated with that is obviously very exciting, and then we we track that and figure out how we can apply that appropriately. And then, of course, AI continues to be a big part of the conversation we have, and we know that just as a national or even a world, phenomenon as to what AI is doing. And, clearly, that trend, and innovation of how that's going to be applied is still being evaluated.

At Banner, we're very much focused on how to kind of take advantage of that, but being very cautious about how to apply it to how care is being delivered, not only in the cancer space, but overall. And then the other part of is it specifically around how diagnostics patients are being, detected for cancer. We know that we have a large focus program on prevention. And so how do we use technologies and other types of means to reach out to populations that don't necessarily have access to, screening and diagnostic capabilities. But how do we leverage the imaging services that are coming out and how imaging is obviously a critical part?

You know, precision medicine and genetic testing all play an extremely important part in this. A lot of advancements in that space, especially when you start to think about blood testings and and how that kind of applies. So those are some of the really major four things. I mean, there's a a whole gamut of different types of trends that we're focusing on, but those those stand out to me today.

Speaker 0: Perfect. As someone who covers, you know, oncology news for Becker's, I'm always, you know, amazed and surprised at how fast this these innovations come up, and, you know, and how quickly things change and are implemented and, like you said, all the discoveries that are being made when it comes to cancer treatment and therapeutics. Have there been any specific achievements or specific progress made within the past six to eighteen months maybe that stand out most to you?

Speaker 1: Specifically, the BannerMD Anderson of Banner, you know, the achievements in the therapeutic is obviously how are we applying and and integrating a lot of these advancements is is, you know, these are achievements that we're constantly kind of pursuing specifically on how we kind of scale them across different locations that we provide. We obviously have a very large hub of cancer care delivery that we have within our, system, but we obviously distribute that care. And so how are we distributing that and integrating that within the care delivery at different sites is obviously something that we're very focused on and but done a very exceptional job. Our experts, our physician experts obviously integrate their conversations in multidisciplinary fashion of doing that. So how we do that and how seamlessly we do that is such a great focus.

And I think we've achieved quite a bit in that space given the fact that Arizona and Northern Colorado and the other areas that we serve, can be very expansive. And so our achievements is really creating that integrative team amongst our caregivers and our our experts, our physicians, subspecialists, and so forth has been really kind of an achievement that I think a lot of programs probably envy just given the fact that we really have that, that model that really kinda supports that that kind of conversation and care delivery capability. So that's kind of a critical part of that. We also know that our research capabilities within the arm of oncology is such an important piece, and so we really kinda look at how we are scaling that. I think there's a great achievement that we've done exceptional, things within that space as well as we continue to grow that out.

We have a very good relationship with the University of Arizona, which we are, as part of Banner Health, we obviously work very closely with our partner of MD Anderson in expanding that piece as well. So, obviously, continuing to build that and strengthen that across the sites that we care for has been, a great achievement, not just over the last six to eighteen months, but over the the time that we've been around. So, we're very fortunate in that space. And then I would probably say the other part of that is such a critical part to, our our ability to serve our our our communities and so forth is really having the right physician expertise. And we do, we feel like we have recruited over the last six to eighteen months some exceptional physicians that really provide that care and that we've been fortunate to have part of the team.

So we continue to push on that, but we are very excited about what we've been able to to achieve through recruiting the right people, for the right care.

Speaker 0: And you you touched on recruitment here, and then also just the expanse of the different Banner Health sites, right, across state lines and and integrating care. I'd love to know, you know, what advice do you give to physicians or emerging leaders in the oncology space when it comes to, you know, making an impact in care or innovation, like research? You know, as you're recruiting, what kind of, tips and tricks and mindsets do you advise them on taking through their career?

Speaker 1: Yeah. No. It's a great question, and and I appreciate the question. I've been in on the oncology world for over twenty years, and and, I've recognized that the oncology ecosystem is very complex. But but the value of that complexity is that there is there are individuals and care team members and, alike that really care for what they do.

And and coming together from an inter interdisciplinary standpoint, a multidisciplinary standpoint is so important. So as a leader, I have felt like the most important thing is to understand the dynamics of that ecosystem intimately in the sense of understanding where everybody sees how things are connected, how they work, how they need to be supported in that. So really diving into understanding all the different parts of that ecosystem, I think, is very critical. And, obviously, we don't know all the details. I know my lane specifically as a as a administrative leader.

I but I also know how I can potentially fit in supporting physicians and caregivers and providing the care. So building those relationships, asking, questions that really kinda push the thinking, trying to understand how and the services that they need and support they need, I think, is an important part of the leadership role. So you can help make those decisions. You can help make sure that you're partnering and you know the right people to to to bring along with you in the sport of building a program or strengthening what the capabilities of it may look like. So I think clearly getting into the weeds a little bit more, and understanding all the different parts is gonna be a critical part for any of the leaders and recognizing where you fit within that ecosystem is such an important part.

And then I would also say that understanding how care is delivered and the innovations that we talked about a little bit earlier, like understanding how changes in therapeutic and technologies may influence that. Again, knowing and kind of recognizing how to have those conversations within this space is is has served me well. Again, just enough to ask questions that don't seem like I don't understand, but knowing that there's a limit to how much I can actually understand of that. I didn't go to that school, obviously. But I think those are critical parts for any leader within this space to understand both sides of it.

If it's the physician, understand the administrative side, understand the finances, and and the HR can can needs and and and capabilities that support that from an administrative side. Again, understanding the clinical space as much as possible so you can make kind of a a collaborative discussion, or informed decisions that way.

Speaker 0: Thank you. Yeah. And I feel like that's such great advice, you know, for a leader in any specialty or any part of the health care industry. Right? Kind of balancing that administrative clinical mindset, and being there for your team.

So appreciate you sharing your viewpoint on that. Whenever I speak to leaders in the oncology field, you know, I'm just so excited to hear about what's coming down the pipeline and and all the innovation that's being made. I always like to ask them what gives them hope, you know, about the future of cancer care, and what specific areas maybe are you focused on and excited about today?

Speaker 1: Well, as I mentioned a little bit about the trends, I I think the advancements in the types of therapeutics are being, designed and obviously researched and and developed offer a lot of hope to those fighting the diseases. It obviously helps our physicians and caregivers, offer new opportunities that never would was there in the past. So I'm I'm very excited about, obviously, what's happening with immunotherapies. And, again, as I mentioned, targeted therapies and just the advancements and new technologies of for surgical interventions and so forth have really kind of helped create opportunities to fight this disease and provide others that maybe in the past have not had that opportunity. So I think that's exciting.

Of course, that comes with how do we leverage all that and how do we incorporate that in in an environment that obviously has a lot of payer, reimbursement challenges and cost issues. But I think it's exciting to be able to figure out how do we deploy those and and offer those within the ecosystem that I designed. So that's a very important part. I also feel like what's exciting is the amount of data that continues to be produced and developed. Obviously, AI is going to play an extremely important part, maybe breaking down that data in more, usable fashions that can really kinda help support decisions with not only clinically, but, operationally as well as, functionally.

So I think those are really exciting things that we focus on quite heavily And, of course, how to provide coordinated care, is really exciting to me about how we can do that better, how we can advance that, especially with new technologies to to be supportive of care to patients in in the homes or in different sites that are very difficult for patients to receive really the optimal care. So I think those are exciting how we figure that out at Banner and how we continue to push that and deploy those types of capabilities, really kind of excite me every day.

Speaker 0: Awesome. Yeah. I love, you know, speaking to health care leaders and and hearing those consistent themes about what's exciting them, what the future looks like. So I appreciate you, you know, cluing us in on on the oncology space. And thank you for joining me on the podcast.

It's, you know, been a really amazing and informative discussion. So thank you for your time.

Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Elizabeth. I appreciate it, and I appreciate Becker just inviting me.

Speaker 0: Absolutely. And I invite our listeners to tune in to more podcasts from Becker's Health Care by visiting our podcast page at beckershospitalreview.com. Thank you again. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day.