BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING REPORT October 23 ... - SWOG

BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING REPORTOctober 23, 2010Chicago, IllinoisLaurence H. Baker, D.O. called the meeting to order at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday October 23, 2010.APPROVAL OF MINUTES FOR THE SPRING 2010 BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETINGThe minutes of the Board of Governors meeting held in San Francisco, California, April 17, 2010, werepresented for approval. The motion to approve the minutes as written was seconded and carried.NEW PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORSThree Southwest Oncology Group Investigators were recommended by Member institutions to serve asPrincipal Investigator at their institutions. Prior to the meeting, the Group’s professional review committeevetted each. The Board of Governors approved the following new investigators and theirrecommendation was recognized by Dr. Baker:Anne Schott, M.D., University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan replacing Laurence Baker, D.O.,effective July 2010.Barbara Craft, M.D., University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi replacing R. DarrylHamilton, M.D., effective September 2010.Bradley McGregor, M.D., San Antonio Military Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, replacing ThomasRichard, M.D., effective August 2010.MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE APPROVALSDr. James K. Weick, chair of the membership committee, and member of the committee, approved 271new investigators for SWOG membership as nominated. These new investigators are located atinstitution types including Group Member, CCOP, Affiliate, Foreign and Special. They representdisciplines including medical oncology, internal medicine, radiation oncology, surgery and pathology. TheBoard approved the recommendation of the membership committee.CONFLICT OF INTEREST SUBCOMMITTEEThe Conflict of Interest Subcommittee was designated as a “subcommittee” under the direction of theScientific Advisory Board in 2005. With the dissolution of the Scientific Advisory Board as previouslystructured, Dr. Baker recommended changing the subcommittee to an “Administrative Committee”. TheBoard approved this recommendation.NEW COMMITTEE CHAIRSDr. Manuel Valdivieso has been nominated as the new Chair for the Quality Assurance AdministrativeCommittee to replace Dr. Charles Coltman. Dr. Valdivieso has been working with the committee for thepast year, and is located at the Group Chair’s Office at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Michigan.Dr. Robert Krouse has been nominated to replace Dr. Kathy Albain as the new Cancer SurvivorshipCommittee Co-Chair effective November 1, 2010. Dr. Krouse is located at the Southern ArizonaVeterans Administration Healthcare Services center in Tucson, Arizona.The Board approved these recommendations.NEW MBCCOP INSTITUTIONThe Division of Cancer Prevention (DCP) has awarded Minority-Based CCOP funding to Boston MedicalCenter, effective June 1, 2010. Boston Medical Center originally joined SWOG in November 1991 as aMember institution. Dr. Lisa Kachnic will serve as the Principal Investigator for the MBCCOP.

COMMITTEES DISBANDEDThe Translational Medicine Committee was disbanded effective September 1, 2010 at the request of theTranslational Medicine Subcommittee Chairs. Future translational medicine activities will be performedas subcommittee activities under the auspices of the respective Disease Committees.The Gynecologic Committee was disbanded effective September 1, 2010. Dr. Markman resigned asChair and no suitable replacement could be found.The Scientific Advisory Board was disbanded as of July 16, 2010 and is replaced by a new structurecalled the Scientific Leadership Advisory Group.THE HOPE FOUNDATIONJo Horn, M.S.W., Executive Director, of The Hope Foundation, reported that a major focus of theFoundation this year has been developing the administrative structure to absorb the Operations Office (anevent that marks the initial receipt of federal dollars through The Hope Foundation).The consolidated SWOG-CTI and The Hope Foundation is holding approximately 29.7 million dollars asof the end of the third quarter of 2010 in total assets (with 17.3 million dollars in liabilities). Third quarterrevenue was 4.3 million dollars and expenses were 2.5 million dollars. Ms. Horn also mentioned theprograms that THF supports (including the Young Investigator Workshop and the Coltman Fellowships,as well as individual clinical trial support), and stated that the Coltman Fellowships application is nowposted on The Hope Foundation web site with a deadline for applications of March 4, 2011.Ms. Horn announced that the Board decided to allocate one million dollars for support of SWOG projectsin the next year – including infrastructure, clinical trial and translational medicine support. A Request forProposals will be posted soon.QUALITY ASSURANCE AUDIT REPORTA total of 54 quality assurance audits including fourteen reaudits were conducted from February 1, 2010through July 31, 2010. Twelve of fourteen reaudits were acceptable. Ten of the 40 routine audits wereunacceptable in one or more audit categories. Institutions with unacceptable audits must submit acorrective action plan and be reaudited within twelve months of the unacceptable audit.REVISED SOUTHWEST ONCOLOGY GROUP POLICIESThe Board of Governors approved the language changes to the following policies:Policy 02 - Constitution/ByLawsPolicy 26 - Radiation Therapy QualityAssurance CommitteePolicy 30 - Responsibility for PatientFollow-UpPolicy 39 - Acquisition, Maintenanceand Use in Research of Tissue andOther Biologic Patient SpecimensPolicy 43 - Data Sharing Policy draftAmended to add the Professional Review Committee and the ScientificLeadership Advisory Group. Removed Scientific Advisory Board, GYNand Translational Medicine Committees and added Conflict of InterestCommittee as an Administrative Committee.Change of process for stereotactic radiosurgery institution approval.Approvals will now be based on satisfactory performance on theQARC standardized benchmark for stereotactic radiosurgery (insteadof SWOG RT committee chair discretion).Added language regarding reconsenting transfer patients.Added information about the collection of IRB approvals for researchon specimens. The following sentence was deleted: "Data generatedfrom analysis of biospecimens submitted to SWOG repositories areconsidered the property of SWOG."NCI requested edits under review – awaiting discussion by theCommittee Chairs.

NEW BUSINESSGuidelines for minimum accrual: Affiliates, Member institutions and CCOP component sites – Dr. Bakerraised a discussion regarding attempting to apply the same or similar minimum accrual requirements toCCOP component sites as has been used for other Group membership programs (5 patients per yearaveraged over three years). Dr. Baker provided background information and raised this as a “quality”issue.Several CCOP Principal Investigators discussed how CCOP processes may be different (with the mainadministrative site performing a central function in tracking and training other participating sites). Otherexamples of the differences between CCOPs and non-CCOP institutions included the need to ensureaccessibility to clinical trials in rural communities, the CCOP mandate to provide education to thecommunities they serve. Several CCOP Principal Investigators welcomed the pressure toward increasingaccrual from the cooperative group level.Mentoring visits to institutions – Dana Sparks, M.A.T. from the SWOG Operations Office discussed thepossibility of providing “mentoring” visits to institutions. As a part of the SWOG Quality Initiative, severalpotential avenues for increasing site involvement and education have been discussed. During a meetingin Ann Arbor in March, the idea for a pilot project for “mentoring” visits from SWOG staff to institutionswas raised. At nearly the same time, Dr. Derek Raghavan from Cleveland Clinic asked about thepossibility for providing a personalized training option for the research staff at his institution to providethem with a morale boost and sense of “belonging” to SWOG. SWOG agreed that this training couldserve as a “test drive” for mentoring. Ms. Sparks worked with Dr. Raghavan and the research staff todevelop a personalized half day training for the staff at Cleveland Clinic. The visit appeared to be wellreceived,and several questions were addressed for the site and for the Operations Office. SWOGleadership has agreed that this program could be extended on a limited basis to sites viewed to be ofparticular consequence within SWOG and to prevent any potential downturns in quality before they occur.FUTURE GROUP MEETINGSThe next Southwest Oncology Group Meeting will be held April 13-16, 2011 at the Hyatt Regency SanFrancisco in San Francisco, California. Other scheduled Group Meetings are as listed below:Wednesday – Saturday, October 12 -15, 2011Hyatt Regency ChicagoChicago, IllinoisWednesday – Saturday, April 11-14, 2012 Hyatt Regency San Francisco SanFrancisco, CaliforniaWednesday – Saturday, October 17-20, 2012Hyatt Regency ChicagoChicago, IllinoisWednesday – Saturday, May 1-4, 2013 Hyatt Regency San Francisco SanFrancisco, California