ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The American Academy of PAs (AAPA) and CancerLinQ LLC announced today that they will be entering a partnership, with AAPA contributing expertise to the CancerLinQ® platform and potentially leveraging CancerLinQ Discovery™ for queries that will assist research efforts in the PA community aimed at improving the quality of patient care.

"By partnering with the AAPA, we are now bringing another facet of the cancer care team, the PAs, into our growing collaborative network," said CancerLinQ LLC Chief Executive Officer Kevin Fitzpatrick. "PAs will provide valuable thought leadership on how data analysis through CancerLinQ® can lead to improvements in care at the practice level. Having graduated from the Duke PA program, our formal collaboration with the AAPA is especially meaningful to me."

With more than 115,500 certified PAs across the country working in all medical and surgical specialties, they represent a vital component of health care teams, often leading these teams, as they work with physicians and other providers to deliver care. Because of their expertise in general medicine, they are on the front lines in monitoring and evaluating the quality of patient care and safety. By collaborating with CancerLinQ LLC, AAPA members will contribute their perspectives on improving the accuracy and completeness of CancerLinQ's data capture efforts in cancer centers and oncology practices across the U.S., where PAs assess patients for treatment effectiveness, manage side effects, and provide care coordination.

"AAPA is pleased to partner with CancerLinQ® to help advance important research that will ultimately improve patient care," said Josanne K. Pagel, MPAS, PA-C, president and board chair of AAPA. "PAs are on the forefront of using data in ways that enhance and improve healthcare, and on behalf of the profession we are pleased to be involved in this very important opportunity."

AAPA members will attend meetings of the CancerLinQ® Oncology Leadership Council and other CancerLinQ® advisory groups and will have access to CancerLinQ Discovery™ -- sub-cohorts of anonymized and statistically de-identified clinical data from the CancerLinQ® platform that physicians, researchers, and analysts in the oncology field can request from the CancerLinQ® Discovery Research & Publications Committee for use in creating new clinical knowledge and improving patient outcomes. The sets are pulled from the rapidly growing CancerLinQ® database, a real-world, big data initiative focused on cancer patient medical information.

The collaboration with AAPA is one of many that CancerLinQ LLC is pursuing with a coalition of partners and thought leaders, including government agencies, medical specialty societies, and life sciences companies. The American Society of Radiation Oncology, Cancer Informatics for Cancer Centers, College of American Pathologists, Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association, Oncology Nursing Society have recently joined forces with CancerLinQ LLC, and in November 2016, AstraZeneca became a founding enterprise partner with CancerLinQ Discovery™. Through all these efforts, the CancerLinQ® team hopes to receive guidance and gain insights that can improve quality and efficiency of the cancer care delivery system.

CancerLinQ is supported in part through the Conquer Cancer Foundation, whose generous donors have helped make the system possible. Major supporters include Amgen; Astellas; AstraZeneca; Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Cancer Treatment Centers of America®; Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation; Genentech BioOncology™; HELSINN; Janssen Oncology; Lilly; Raj Mantena, RPh; Novartis Oncology; Pfizer Oncology; Thomas G. Roberts, Jr., MD, and Susan M. DaSilva; and Susan G. Komen®.

CancerLinQ® and CancerLinQ Discovery™ are projects of CancerLinQ LLC. For more information on how to participate or partner with CancerLinQ, please visit CancerLinQ.org.

About ASCO:
Founded in 1964, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) is committed to making a world of difference in cancer care. As the world’s leading organization of its kind, ASCO represents more than 40,000 oncology professionals who care for people living with cancer. Through research, education, and promotion of the highest-quality patient care, ASCO works to conquer cancer and create a world where cancer is prevented or cured, and every survivor is healthy. ASCO is supported by its affiliate organization, the Conquer Cancer Foundation. Learn more at www.ASCO.org, explore patient education resources at www.Cancer.Net, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Cancer-related policy developments can be found at ascoaction.asco.org.