Shanthi Sivendran: Honored to Speak on Behalf of the American Cancer Society at the White House today

Shanthi Sivendran, Senior Vice President Cancer Care Support at American Cancer Society and Clinical Associate Professor at Oncology at Penn Medicine, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“High-quality, sustainable navigation is a critical component of comprehensive cancer care. I’m honored to speak on behalf of the American Cancer Society at the White House today, along with leaders from Sanofi, Thyme Care, and The Center for Medicare Services.

I appreciate the Biden Cancer Moonshot bringing a diverse group of navigation leaders together to discuss continued advancement of patient navigation in cancer care.

One year ago, under the visionary leadership of President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, the Biden Cancer Moonshot achieved a groundbreaking milestone: navigation services became eligible for reimbursement through Medicare and private health insurers for the first time.

This historic advancement underscores the critical impact of navigation services and the need for equitable access to this high-quality service.

At the American Cancer Society, we have a long history of supporting patient navigation. We currently support the Cancer Moonshot efforts, through the ACS Leadership in Oncology Navigation (ACS LION) program which supports expansion of the navigation workforce through training, credentialing, implementation support, and equity support to oncology teams across the country.

The American Cancer Society National Navigation Roundtable (ACS NNRT) provides critical national leadership on high-quality cancer care through evidence-based patient navigation.

Our colleagues at American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) work tirelessly to advance policy change at every level of government to support patient navigation.

The event will be live streamed today, Thursday, November 21, at 1:30 PM ET. I encourage you to tune in and join this important conversation. Link to register will be dropped in the comments.”

Karen Knudsen, Executive Strategic Advisor and Immediate Past CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS), also reshared the post:

“Beautifully said, Shanthi Sivendran. I’m incredibly proud of our work American Cancer Society and American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) to expand access to patient navigation.

This initiative was our leading priority in 2023 because of its proven ability to improve equitable outcomes, lower healthcare costs, and facilitate early-stage cancer detection when treatment is most effective.

Simply put, patient navigation lifts all boats—when cancer patients have access to this critical support, everyone benefits. This was a great stride toward a future where every patient has the guidance, they need for better outcomes.”

Karen E. Knudsen is the Executive Strategic Advisor and Immediate Past CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS). Prior to joining ACS, Dr. Knudsen served as executive vice president of Oncology Services and enterprise director for Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Health. She also served as president for the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) and on the board of directors of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). She serves on the board of advisors for the National Cancer Institute and on 12 external advisory boards for NCI-designated cancer centers. She is an active member of several committees with the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO), in addition to serving on other academic and for-profit advisory boards.

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