The Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions has named PRIME® the winner of 2024 William Campbell Felch Award for Outstanding Research in Continuing Education (CE) at its annual meeting. This marks the third time PRIME has won the award in the last five years.

The award-winning implementation science program focuses on identifying and resolving underlying root causes of disparities in care for cancer patients who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning, which aligns with the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s recent call to action to address suboptimal access to cancer prevention and high-quality cancer care impacting sexual and gender minorities. Support for this transformative project was provided to PRIME through grants from Gilead Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Pfizer, Lilly, Novartis, and Eisai.

With this program, PRIME sets a new standard for equity-focused implementation science initiatives, offering a framework for projects focused on improving the quality of healthcare for sexual and gender non-conforming communities.

PRIME’s research-driven initiative was designed to identify and address real-world disparities in LGBTQ+ cancer care and drive sustainable change in practice across oncology care settings. Measurable outcomes captured from two leading academic centers and five community-based clinics revealed that while 65% of HCPs (n=115) believe patients feel safe disclosing LGBTQ+ identity, only 24% of patients (n=817) reported feeling comfortable doing so. Additionally, nearly 40% of patients reported increased confidence in care if their healthcare provider shared pronouns or displayed them on their badge. However, 0% of HCPs reported doing this. The baseline data was built into audit-feedback sessions at each clinic to facilitate action plans to advance equitable cancer care, which included improving documentation with electronic medical records of preferred pronouns, purchasing accessories to display to show acceptance, and providing resources tailored to the needs of LGBTQ+ patients. Furthermore, healthcare providers significantly improved commitment to discuss gender identity from very low baseline scores of 12% increasing to 78% among academic HCPs and from only 1% increasing to 68% among community HCPs. As evident from the baseline data, these discussions were important to increasing patients' feeling of confidence in care. These findings thereby demonstrate the impact of building real-world patient insights into the provider-facing interventions to motivate behavior change.

“The distinct healthcare needs of the LGBTQ+ community have been underappreciated and overlooked for far too long. This landmark initiative demonstrates how utilizing real-world patient insights and research-driven education can be a sustainable catalyst for advancing equitable cancer care. We are honored that this important work has been recognized through the prestigious Felch award," says Chris Napolitan, Managing Director of PRIME.

About PRIME

PRIME® is a leading research and medical education company that advances the science of learning and behavior change among providers, patients, payers, and health ecosystems to improve competency, performance, and quality health outcomes. The scalable and sustainable research and education that PRIME delivers has measurably improved patient care for over 30 years. PRIME is part of the Everyday Health Group.

About Everyday Health Group

The Everyday Health Group is a recognized leader in patient and provider education, attracting an engaged audience of over 81 million health consumers and over 890,000 U.S. practicing physicians and clinicians to its premier health and wellness digital properties. Our mission is to drive better clinical and health outcomes through decision-making informed by highly relevant information, data and analytics. We empower healthcare providers and consumers with trusted content and services delivered through the Everyday Health Group's world-class brands. Everyday Health Group is a division of Ziff Davis, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZD).

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