Reimagining What’s Possible: GI Cancers Alliance Unveils Collective Action Roadmap

Описание: Martha Raymond, MA, the CEO of the GI Cancers Alliance, joined Cancer Nursing Today to discuss the alliance’s brand-new Collective Action Roadmap for GI Cancers.

“We're an alliance of over about 120 advocacy organizations and partners globally that come together working on all the many areas in the GI cancer space,” Raymond said. “We’re a patient-centered organization, we want to unite and have a stronger voice for all of our patients, and that's one of the reasons we wanted to work on a collaborative road map, which we're very excited that we just launched.”

It was important to develop the report because GI cancers account for around 25% of all cancer-related deaths in the U.S., and there can be multiple barriers to early detection and diagnosis, including a lack of awareness and education on GI cancers. In addition, many patients with GI cancers face “fragmented care and uneven access to care,” Raymond explained.

“With these systemic challenges, we felt it was an opportunity as the GI Cancers Alliance and our many stakeholders to come together, grounded in collaboration with a patient-centric care model, and see what we could do collaboratively in partnership to create this road map,” Raymond said.

The roadmap development process began during the American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in January 2025.

“We convened one of the first of its kind roundtables to define our shared priorities and codevelop actionable solutions focusing on the patient from diagnosis, to treatment to survivorship, and then quality of life all throughout the journey,” Raymond said.

To develop the roadmap in collaborative and comprehensive fashion, the alliance brought together multiple stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, patients, caregivers, long-term survivors, the advocacy community, and industry, including industry supporter AstraZeneca.

One of the main priorities of roadmap development was to make it “actionable and scalable” to encourage participation from multiple parties, from small organizations to large organizations, and even individuals.

“Throughout our roadmap, there are many examples of programs that are underway, opportunities to learn about how to size and scale a program or an initiative,” Raymond said.

It’s also critical to review and implement findings from patient-reported outcomes research, she emphasized, as this helps the alliance and its members learn directly about the challenges and gaps in support and develop “actionable programming that can help meet those needs.”

The alliance also met with patient communities to identify what they saw as the most important priorities to address, as well as the barriers and gaps that they are experiencing. The final report and roadmap include extensive data on challenges, short term solutions, and long term solutions identified.

“We really hope that the roadmap will be evergreen and will live on,” Raymond said. “It's a guide, but it's also an invitation because we want to make sure that we are meeting needs today, tomorrow, and [in] the future. I invite all of our GI partners and individuals who are looking to get involved in advocacy to reach out to us to tell us what you're doing, what has been successful, [and] what are your goals? Because working together, we can amplify our efforts.”

In the long term, one of the main calls to action in the roadmap report is to continue the process and continue evaluating successes and challenges. Raymond explained that there could even be further volumes of the roadmap as the landscape evolves.

“Together, working collaboratively, there's really nothing we can't accomplish. We can reimagine what's possible I think that's exciting for us as advocacy organizations to think beyond what one organization can do and think about collaboratively, all of us working together to meet our patient needs, and what that will mean for the community. I think the sky's the limit on that.”

To learn more about the roadmap and the GI Cancers Alliance, visit https://www.gicancersalliance.org/.