CAZENOVIA — On Sept. 23, the Cazenovia-based non-profit organization National Community Oncology Dispensing Association, Inc. (NCODA) will present its first annual Driving Cancer Care Forward “Passion Fore Patients” Golf Tournament at Cazenovia County Club at 3711 Number Nine Road.

A shotgun start is scheduled for 8:30 a.m.

Tickets are $125 per individual player and $500 per four-person team.

The event will also include lunch in the clubhouse following the competition, raffles, silent auctions, and a putting contest.

NCODA is a grassroots organization committed to helping “medically integrated oncology teams” to deliver patient-centered care by providing leadership, expertise, quality standards, and best practices.

According to NCODA Founder and Executive Director Michael Reff, RPh, MBA, a medically integrated oncology team within a practice or institution consists of the doctors, advanced practice providers including physician assistant or nurse practitioner, pharmacists, nurses, technicians, etc. that are working together to provide optimal care to patients following a cancer diagnosis.

A central aspect of NCODA’s work is supporting cancer care professionals in the medically integrated dispensing [MID] of cancer therapies.

MID is a model wherein patients’ oral anti-cancer prescriptions are filled and dispensed through a pharmacy located within the oncology center where they are receiving care, rather than via mail-order pharmacies.

In 2020, NCODA conclusively defined the MID pharmacy as “A dispensing pharmacy within an oncology center of excellence that promotes a patient-centered, multidisciplinary team approach. The [MID] is an outcome-based collaborative and comprehensive model that involves oncology healthcare professionals and other stakeholders who focus on the continuity of coordinated quality care and therapies for cancer patients.”

NCODA believes that, when done correctly, MID allows for multiple advantages over alternative methods, including mail-order (“specialty”) pharmacies. For example, under the MID model, medically integrated teams can communicate effectively, thereby eliminating ambiguity; health care providers can easily access a patient’s medical records to help prescribers make more informed decisions; the cancer centers can work with the payer/employer group to ensure cost savings and enhance patient satisfaction; the cancer centers can prevent unnecessary drugs from being delivered to patients, thereby reducing waste and saving money for patients and the healthcare system; the MID service can better track medications and support continuity of care; the pharmacist and patient care team can better communicate with the patient and engage with them on managing their side effects, financial assistance, and overall care.

According to NCODA, the enhanced care that comes from MID leads to substantial cost savings, timely dispensing of correct prescriptions, better patient adherence to medications, and maximized beneficial patient outcomes and satisfaction.

Reff, a Cazenovia resident, established NCODA as a non-profit in 2015.

“Having led the development of a medically integrated pharmacy (The Patient Rx Center) at Hematology Oncology Associates of Central New York in Syracuse, I realized that the cancer care community needed an organization to develop standardized healthcare professional- and patient-centered resources,” said Reff. “Clinical fragmentation in oncology often leads to a myriad of complications for patients, including delayed treatment. My mission in starting NCODA was to turn the industry right-side up and help cancer centers better manage their patients, so they receive the right treatment at the right time.”

The organization has grown from just two employees in 2015 to 24 employees in 2022; nine of the employees are locally employed at NCODA’s 9 Albany St. office and others work remotely from the Albany area, Oklahoma, Colorado, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Washington, Florida, Virginia, and Alabama.

NCODA started out by developing a set of quality standards for cancer centers and then expanded on that work by creating and developing the “Going Beyond the First Fill” model for dispensing oral anti-cancer medications.

According to Reff, NCODA coined the Going Beyond the First Fill phrase/methodology when it helped several of its member cancer centers in New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Utah earn the right from health insurance companies to keep the dispensing of oral anti-cancer medications within their MID pharmacies beyond the traditionally allowed first fill.

“In essence, [MID] pharmacies prove value to health insurance companies through better patient management and cost savings to the healthcare system, and [thus] earn the right to allow the patient to fill their cancer medication within the integrated pharmacy, as opposed to the traditionally mandated way of filling through a large [pharmacy benefit manager-owned] mail-order pharmacy. This improves speed to treatment, overall adherence, and coordination of care.”

Today, NCODA’s membership includes nurses, pharmacists, physicians, advanced practice providers, administrators, pharmacy technicians, directors, managers, patient advocates, and financial support staff. Together, the members are part of an international healthcare professional community that works with MID pharmacy teams to provide tools and resources that support better patient care.

According to Reff, NCODA supports its members primarily through education and the sharing of quality standards.

NCODA provides many complimentary resources to its members, including educational webinars, in-person international meetings several times per year, NCODA’s Quality Standards (in collaboration with the American Society of Clinical Oncology), standard operating procedure documents called Positive Quality Interventions (PQI), patient and healthcare professional education sheets on oral and IV anti-cancer medications, the oncology-specific journal “Oncolytics Today,” oncology legislative updates, a community for peer-to-peer mentorship and the sharing of critical oncology updates, and tools for patient assistance and data reporting (e.g., the Cost Avoidance & Waste Tracker tool and financial assistance).

The organization continues to expand its reach to include healthcare students by building its international Professional Student Organization (PSO) chapters at schools/colleges of pharmacy. The PSOs provide pharmacy students with an opportunity to learn about the field of oncology and network with like-minded students from across the globe.

“Based on several years of research, NCODA learned that oncology is a therapeutic area that pharmacy students in the US and abroad don’t receive much training in prior to graduation,” explained Reff. “NCODA saw this as an opportunity to fill the gap, supporting student development in oncology from a patient-centered approach. . . Our goal is to empower future oncology leaders.”

NCODA serves its 50 established PSO chapters through in-person and virtual education, mentorship, and networking opportunities.

All proceeds from the Driving Cancer Care Forward golf tournament will support the continuation of NCODA’s student professional development initiatives, such as its PSO chapters, its Cazenovia High School scholarship, and its opportunities for pharmacy students from across the US and Canada to work alongside its clinical pharmacist team members to develop oncology patient resources and tools.

The NCODA Cazenovia High School Scholarship awards $500 to students interested in the oncology field. Since its establishment in 2020, the scholarship has been awarded to three students.

The organization’s student-led oncology patient education resources include PQI, treatment support kits, oncology legislative tracker, cancer screening resources, a national bone marrow registry, and professional articles focused on educating pharmacy technicians on cancer medications.

Learn more about NCODA’s Driving Cancer Care Forward Golf Tournament or register at ncoda.org/driving-cancer-care-forward/.