The Association of Cancer Care Centers (ACCC) announced that WellSpan Cancer Institute in York, Pennsylvania, has received a 2025 ACCC Innovator Award.

WellSpan Cancer Institute was recognized for its machine learning-enabled decision support, which reduced in-hospital mortality and healthcare costs and increased palliative care utilization through the integration of a 12-month mortality risk model into clinical workflows. The ACCC Innovator Awards recognize visionary cancer programs and practices that advance access, quality, and value in cancer care delivery.

“WellSpan Health is committed to developing leading-edge practices and continuous improvement measures to advance the future of the health care industry from right here in Central Pennsylvania,” said Nik Korgaonkar MD, vice president and Chief Medical Officer-Oncology, WellSpan Health. “Deploying these solutions within the WellSpan Cancer Institute has advanced the organization’s mission to be a trusted partner to our patients, so that they always feel safe when in our care.”

WellSpan Cancer Institute utilizes a predictive analytics score that is derived from patients’ comorbidities, age, and current condition to determine which patients are most in need of palliative care consults. Using this model, WellSpan experienced an 84% increase in palliative care referrals and a 14% decrease in in-hospital mortality among advanced cancer patients.

“Using machine learning to identify patients in need has allowed our team to have the right high-value conversations with those who could most benefit from palliative care, given the limited time they have,” said Andrew Munchel, Quality Program Administrator of the Oncology Service Line at WellSpan Health. “Rather than expanding our workforce by hiring a whole new team to address this need, we expanded our impact significantly by embracing technology we already had but weren’t fully utilizing.”

This October, Munchel and his colleagues at WellSpan Health will present their innovation to oncology professionals from across the country at the ACCC 42nd National Oncology Conference. Get to know this award-winning program in this ACCCBuzz interview. More details about WellSpan’s program, including a video that describes the integration of the predictive score into workflows, is available on the ACCC website, and in an interview with Munchel on an episode of the CANCER BUZZ podcast, out now.

More information about the ACCC Innovator Award sessions and the full agenda at the upcoming National Oncology conference can be found on the ACCC website.