Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
I'm Ryan Muhammad, writer and moderator with Becker's
Healthcare. And I'm thrilled to have with me
today, doctor Jane Abraham,
chairman of the department of hematology and medical
oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Institute.
Doctor, welcome to the podcast. I'm very excited
to have you join us today. I know
you recently did another Becker's oncology webinar with
me, so it's nice to speak with you
again. But to get us started, would you
mind please introduce yourself for the audience and
tell us a bit about your background?
Sure. Thank you, Mariah, for having me again.
So I'm Jame Abraham. I'm the department chair,
for the hematology and oncology,
at Cleveland Clinic, and, I'm a professor of
medicine
at the Leona College of Medicine.
So as the department chair or, if I
can say the enterprise
chair of the HemOnc,
I'm responsible for our
cancer caregivers,
in Ohio and Florida
and then Abu Dhabi.
Our goal is to make sure
we provide,
the best care and across
our enterprise
for patients with cancer.
Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving
us that background.
As a fellow Ohioan that now lives, in
another state, I'm glad that you're doing what
you're doing for the state. So what are
some of your top priorities for the rest
of the year, do you think?
So 2025,
we will continue to focus on our mission,
that's providing the best care for our patients,
making sure,
we can provide
most advanced and and then new cancer
treatment for our patients who are coming through
our doors, you know, here at,
Ohio,
in Florida,
and Abu Dhabi.
To do that, we need to continue to
make sure we continue to support our team,
recruit
number of doctors, continue to recruit number of
doctors to our team
because
we are expanding our services
and our we continue to grow.
So our my number one number two priority
is continue to recruit people,
doctors, and other team members to the team.
And the third priority is continue to look
for newer
treatment options,
so that we are
staying
ahead of the curve
as far as the cancer treatment is concerned,
as standard of treatment,
and then, of course, in our clinical trials.
So, and then, of course, we continue to
educate. We have a you know, one of
the largest fellowship program in the country.
We continue to educate our fellows,
and and we have APP fellowship.
So we train in a huge workforce
to support,
that increasing
need for cancer care in our country.
Got it. Yeah. Thank you so much for
giving us that that overview.
Are there any programs
or initiatives that have been the most needle
moving for you or the organization,
in 2024?
So 2024,
we continue to grow.
We saw more patients than before.
Some of the unique programs,
we introduce
a large number of new clinical trials for
our patients.
Most of them are first in humans.
So number of novel treatment
options came through
in our site, mostly at our main campus
in Cleveland.
So that is one of our biggest this
thing. And then our team has made tremendous
progress in
cellular therapy,
mainly in Till,
tumor infiltrating lymphocytes,
and, of course, and other CAR T products,
CAR t treatments in, heme malignancy.
So we are really proud of our team's
clinical
and research effort. And then if you look
at
a number of our colleagues have press have
published
journals which are, you know, really practice
changing,
across the country or across the world.
Yeah. Absolutely. And and, doctor, before I let
you go, the last thing I really want
to ask you is, how are you thinking
about growth in member experience,
as a whole?
So,
again,
let let me rephrase that question. Again, when
we continue to grow,
we want to make sure
our
patients
get the best experience,
and has you number. I know cancer is
not the easiest diagnosis.
We want to make sure,
we,
take care of patients
holistically, you know, from the diagnosis to treatment
to supporting them physically and emotionally.
So patient experience,
is, our forefront. I know that's we continue
to focus on that. And at the same
time, we continue to support our team.
How do we continue to support them
when
we see more patients
than before?
And as you know, Maria,
the world is getting complicated with
genomics,
new treatments coming through every day,
and now the AI is really coming to
disrupt
the existing
care delivery,
diagnostics,
and even, you know, the drug discovery.
So how do we continue to support our
team
in this disruptive
environment? So we continue to focus on all
these things,
when we look for look forward to 2025.
Got it. Yeah. Absolutely. That makes a lot
of sense. And thank you so much for
those final thoughts. It's definitely been, a very
informative discussion, doctor. So I wanna thank you,
for coming back on Becker's HealthCare,
and I look forward to connecting with you
again soon.
Thank you, Maria.