Not every critical innovation in cancer care comes from a Phase III trial or a new drug approval. Sometimes, progress comes from a new onboarding curriculum that improves how nurses acclimate to a high-acuity unit. It could come from a technologist who redesigns a workflow that cuts patient wait times in half, or from an educator who develops a simulation that better prepares trainees to communicate with end-of-life patients and families.
These efforts don’t typically show up in traditional medical journals, but there should be a place for this important research.
The launch of Advances in Cancer Education & Quality Improvement (ACE-QI), an open-access journal, is an intentional step toward changing that. ACE-QI was established to publish the ideas and insights that drive daily improvements in cancer care— from all disciplines, from every level of training and from the people who often do their best work outside the spotlight.
The journal’s mission is straightforward: recognize, validate and disseminate the full spectrum of innovations that shape the cancer care experience, even when those contributions don’t fit within the usual academic hierarchy.
Valuable research occurs across the cancer care environment and spectrum
We often reserve the term “research” for randomized controlled trials, multi-institutional databases, or grant-funded discovery science. But research is about observing a problem, designing an intervention and tracking the effects.
It’s the approach a clinic coordinator takes to retool appointment scheduling to reduce no-show rates. It’s an improved checklist implemented by a fellow that improves procedural safety and ends up becoming part of the department’s onboarding. These incremental changes – the tracking of their impact – have proven to have big implications. It is not because they promise global change, but because they make a meaningful difference in the environments where patients receive care.
In cancer centers, where complexity is high and stakes are higher, education is an ongoing system function, not a discrete moment. And that education doesn’t just happen in medical school or fellowship. It happens in pre-operative huddles, morbidity and mortality conferences, onboarding packets—every iterative improvement to how we deliver care. Publishing the work that drives those changes is vital.
That’s what makes ACE-QI different. The journal’s first issue features contributions from physicians and nurses, as well as instructional designers, program managers, and clinical educators. One article details the implementation of a structured onboarding program for advanced practice providers, developed collaboratively by nursing and medical leadership. Another highlights a virtual simulation exercise for radiation oncology staff that improved both communication confidence and patient safety awareness. These are real programs with real-world results.
Open-access publishing shares advances with all
As an open-access publication, ACE-QI removes another longstanding barrier to progress. The best practices in education, safety, and quality improvement should not be trapped behind paywalls or institutional firewalls. When research that supports a program that improves care in one clinic is published, someone across the country can then access those learnings and best practices to be able to implement or adapt it in their own setting the next day.
This is especially important when we’re faced with external headwinds, rising drug and supply costs or the rapid rise and use of artificial intelligence. Healthcare workers shouldn’t have to work on the same problems or make the same mistakes. Sharing strategies, outcomes, and lessons learned across the field of healthcare has the potential to accelerate progress, improve outcomes and impact.
There is also a cultural component to this work that cannot be ignored. In the traditional academic model, the perception can be that only certain types of work “count.” But when those boundaries are drawn too tightly, valuable insights are excluded. The perception becomes that work and ideas that aren’t included and published have less value and are not worthwhile.
Elevating interdisciplinary and non-physician voices is not just about representation; it’s about accuracy. Cancer care is delivered by teams, not individuals. A scholarly infrastructure reflective of that reality is necessary. Empowering interprofessional education through accessible means both supports and validates that infrastructure, while also serving as a template for others to do the same.
Building the infrastructure for scholarly interprofessional education
Over two decades in interventional radiology has taught me a lot about how progress really happens. Sometimes it’s a single transformative device. More often, it’s a subtle change in technique, a refined understanding of when and how to intervene, a clearer discussion with a patient about their goals. That’s the kind of layered, collaborative progress that makes up most of modern cancer care, and that’s the kind of progress that exists, and that ACE-QI aims to capture.
ACE-QI will serve as a home for ideas that might otherwise be lost in emails, meeting notes or hallway conversations. The journal is a platform for people whose work improves care, even if they don’t wear a white coat or have a PhD or MD after their name. Its goal is to inspire more institutions to support, publish and celebrate the everyday innovations that make cancer care accessible, safer, more effective, and more humane.
Because the truth is: if breakthroughs from the top of the ladder are the only ones published, cancer care centers and the broader oncology community miss the foundation holding it up. Together, healthcare professionals regardless of their title or area of focus can strengthen our collective knowledge advancing cancer care by publishing in journals like ACE-QI. Learn more and submit at the ACE-QI site, here.
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