Tag: 3BL

by Robin John, CEO of Eventide Funds

For years, I’ve been fascinated by (and immensely grateful for) the ways improved biotechnology, new therapies, and groundbreaking medical research can radically improve people’s lives. All kinds of medical crises are now remedied by routine procedures and ordinary medications. And even with incurable diseases, which still ravage the body, we are now able to manage many of them and provide a real quality of life. Science is astounding.

We do live in a remarkable age of medical research, and over the years, I’ve discovered profound joy from investing in biotechnology and other healthcare companies through Eventide, the investment company where I serve as CEO. A few partners and I founded Eventide because we were unfulfilled by a career path focused solely on security and upward mobility. We wanted to figure out how we could use our experience and knowledge to make the world better. So, for 18 years, we’ve invested in companies we believe are well-managed, ethical, and will make healthy profits—but (and this part is crucial) also in companies that are creating products and services that do good for the world. And I can’t imagine a company doing anything better for the world than saving lives. The healthcare industry faces many well-known struggles that need to be addressed, but we can’t let this flaw drown out the fact that so many good companies are saving and improving lives every day. This article looks at how and more.

Read Robin’s full article with hope filled stories and how their portfolios make a difference, all here- https://greenmoney.com/investing-healing-how-our-choices-can-help-to-mend-the-world

 

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FedEx is known for delivering packages around the world—but this month, the company delivered something far more unique. Through its FedEx Cares Delivering for Good initiative, FedEx helped transport Walnut, a four-year-old harbor seal, from the Los Angeles Zoo to his new home at Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa. The move was part of a collaborative effort involving the Los Angeles Zoo, SeaWorld San Diego, and Blank Park Zoo, all working together through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA).

Walnut’s journey began in Los Angeles, where he boarded a FedEx aircraft and traveled through Memphis before arriving in Omaha. Throughout the trip, Blank Park Zoo animal care and veterinary staff accompanied him to ensure his safety and well-being. SeaWorld San Diego provided a specialized transport crate, highlighting the level of coordination and care required to move animals safely between accredited institutions.

When the aircraft landed in Omaha, members of the Blank Park Zoo team met the flight directly on the tarmac and transported Walnut to Des Moines. Even in an unconventional delivery, some protocols remained unchanged—FedEx delivery paperwork still required a signature. As Chief Animal Officer Jay Tetzloff noted, it’s not every day you sign for a harbor seal, a moment that underscored the unique collaboration behind the effort.

Now settled in Iowa, Walnut will complete a standard quarantine period before joining California sea lions Zoey and Meatball at the zoo’s Hub Harbor habitat. His arrival marks an exciting addition during Blank Park Zoo’s milestone anniversary year—and serves as a reminder of how FedEx’s global network can support critical, one-of-a-kind missions that go far beyond traditional shipping.

Click here to learn about FedEx Cares, our global community engagement program.

T. Rowe Price hosted its weeklong, in-person High School Encounter program May 18–22, 2026, bringing 32 high school seniors from 20 different high schools in the Class of 2026 to the firm’s Baltimore headquarters for early exposure to asset management and finance careers. Students were selected through a competitive process based on academic achievement, engagement, and interest in business, finance, or investing.

The program featured sessions led by current and former investment professionals on investing fundamentals, finance careers and asset management. It supports T. Rowe Price’s early talent strategy by helping students from diverse backgrounds explore careers in the industry.

In a recent discussion with Rockwell Automation ROKStudios, Tony Wibbeler, founder and CEO of Bolder Industries, outlined a vision for accelerating the shift to circular manufacturing, emphasizing the importance of clear strategy, advanced technology, and strong partnerships. Bolder Industries is a circular-economy infrastructure platform that transforms end-of-life tires into essential, sustainable materials for the tire, rubber, plastics, and petrochemical industries.

In this interview, Wibbeler talked about the challenge of scale and described efforts to expand circular manufacturing operations across regions, particularly in the United States and Europe. Achieving this requires standardized processes, repeatable plant designs, and consistent quality across facilities, ensuring that growth does not come at the expense of efficiency or reliability.

Equally important, Wibbeler emphasized, is collaboration. Partnerships between companies like Bolder Industries and Rockwell Automation bring together expertise in manufacturing, digital solutions, and system integration, helping accelerate deployment and strengthen operational outcomes.

While challenges remain, including system integration and global alignment, the discussion underscored a clear takeaway: scaling circular manufacturing is not just an environmental goal, but a strategic business priority. When done effectively, it can deliver both economic value and meaningful sustainability impact for the industry.

Watch the full interview.

For Japanese pharmaceutical wholesaler TS Alfresa Corporation, sustainability has become an essential part of its mission. In alignment with the goals of parent organization Alfresa Holdings to cut CO₂ emissions to almost zero by fiscal year 2050, the company is working on tailored sustainability initiatives.

TS Alfresa, headquartered in bustling Hiroshima City, supports medical infrastructure across a region of around seven million people. The company employs approximately 1,100 staff, delivering everything from prescription pharmaceuticals and medical equipment to testing reagents.

Recent efforts to improve sustainability included switching its large delivery fleet over to electric vehicles as part of efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions by 30% by the end of fiscal year 2030. However, that alone was not enough. Leaders at the company realized that modernizing its IT estate presented a significant opportunity to advance its sustainability goals.

Mr. Shinji Sawai, Director and Senior Managing Executive Officer and General Manager of the Administration Division at TS Alfresa, says: “We have a goal to address social and environmental issues, from waste to the supply chain, in the medical and healthcare industry to help contribute to a more sustainable society. With our technology estate a big part of our environmental footprint, we needed a partner that could offer a smart, trusted IT solution to reduce the impact.”

Remote working boost

With hundreds of laptops and desktops due for refresh, TS Alfresa saw an opportunity to modernize its device fleet and equip employees with the tools needed for hybrid work. As remote working increased, teams required devices capable of reliably running both Zoom video conferencing software and other collaboration tools. As employee workloads and mobility needs evolved, the company sought devices that could better support productivity on the move.

TS Alfresa selected Lenovo for its strong sustainability expertise and the compelling combination of performance and value offered by Lenovo ThinkPad and Lenovo ThinkCentre devices.

The company worked with Lenovo to introduce 620 Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 4 AMD laptops, 505 Lenovo ThinkPad L15 Gen 4 AMD laptops, and 15 Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Tiny Gen 2 PCs. Powered by AMD Ryzen processors, the devices deliver strong performance at a lower cost, with the Lenovo ThinkPad L Series featuring AMD Ryzen 5 PRO processors ideal for video conferencing and live collaboration. Remote workers also benefit from Dolby Audio for clearer video calls, and integrated fingerprint scanners that help secure access while on the move.

Kenichi Nakata, Manager of the IT Planning Department at TS Alfresa Corporation, commented, “The high-quality design of the Lenovo devices was one of the reasons behind our choice. Lenovo ThinkPad laptops are sleek and user-friendly, which has a positive impact on employee engagement. We also appreciated Lenovo’s extensive support services. We think these are unmatched by other companies, including the breadth of warranty coverage for repairs and laptop battery replacement service.”

A simpler path to support sustainability initiatives

To support TS Alfresa’s sustainability goals, Lenovo CO₂ Offset Services were used to help address the estimated carbon footprint associated with the company’s device fleet. Lenovo calculates estimated CO₂ emissions across the whole device lifecycle – from manufacturing, shipping, and packaging to energy use and end-of-life recycling.

Lenovo then purchases carbon credits through its partner ClimeCo, supporting verifiable environmental initiatives such as forest conservation and renewable energy initiatives.

“CIOs are increasingly focused on delivering business performance and sustainability progress in parallel,” said John Stamer, Vice President and General Manager, Global Product and Sustainability Services at Lenovo. “To achieve this, they need IT solutions that are designed for impact and help turn sustainability commitments into tangible results. For companies with ambitious sustainability goals, Lenovo CO₂ Offset Services provide a simple and transparent way for organizations to invest in verified climate action projects associated with the estimated carbon footprint of their IT hardware.”

Supporting broader sustainability efforts

Mr. Shinji Sawai said that the offset services would help TS Alfresa Corporation contribute to the wider group’s sustainability goals: “Our parent company holds a bi-yearly meeting where each group company shares their efforts and results in reducing CO₂ emissions.”

The deployment of 1,140 devices was paired with Lenovo CO₂ Offset Services covering approximately 144 tons of estimated CO₂ emission associated with the devices over a defined period. This amount is equivalent to emissions from driving 366,705 miles in an average gasoline-powered vehicle or charging more than 11 million smartphones*. This represents nearly a quarter of TS Alfresa’s 2024 fiscal year target of 606 tons.

Over the course of the devices’ four-year lifecycles, the company expects Lenovo CO₂ Offset Services to cover an estimated total of 577.5 tons of CO₂ emissions through investments in verified climate action projects.

“To make our environmental efforts visible and help raise employee awareness, we have branded our new devices with bright green CO₂ offset labels and provided them with documentation to explain the initiative,” said Eiji Kono, General Manager of IT Planning, TS Alfresa.

With the group focusing on long-term sustainability goals, the project was viewed by executives as an important contribution to the organization’s broader environmental strategy. “This large-scale carbon offsetting initiative is of great significance to the environmental strategy of the entire group,” said Mr. Shinji Sawai, Director and Senior Managing Executive Officer and General Manager of the Administration Division, TS Alfresa.

*CO₂ equivalent to 114 tons worth of emissions, calculated with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator February 2026. https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator#results

LENOVO, THINKCENTRE and THINKPAD are trademarks of Lenovo. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2026 Lenovo

Learn more about Lenovo’s work with TS Alfresa Corporation

Learn more about Lenovo CO₂ Offset Services

Learn more about Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q Tiny Gen 2

Learn more about ThinkPad L14 Gen 4 AMD

Learn more about ThinkPad L15 Gen 4 AMD

As we ask nature for direction in an age of AI-driven change, climate crises, and political strife, author and host Baratunde Thurston invites us to be energized, to see challenges as opportunities, and to move beyond individualized worry to make a declaration of interdependence.

Be sure to tune into this week’s edition of the AskNature Podcast for the full story.

Originally published on CVS Health Company Newsroom

As the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, CVS Health is stepping into a unique role as the Official Memory Maker of America250 — helping people capture, commemorate and share the moments that define this historic milestone.

From major national events to neighborhood celebrations, CVS Health is combining its scale, community presence and health expertise to make it easy for people to celebrate in ways that feel meaningful and connected.

Turning moments into lasting memories

At the center of CVS Health’s role in America250 is a simple idea: the moments that matter most deserve to last.

As the Official Memory Maker, CVS Photo is giving customers new ways to turn everyday celebrations into lasting keepsakes with a wide range of customizable products designed to commemorate the occasion — including mugs, tumblers, magnets and more.

These designs were informed by CVS Health colleagues, bringing a unique, modern perspective to the collection. Trend-forward stitching and handcrafted details create a modern Americana aesthetic that feels both timeless and relevant today.

By connecting digital moments to physical keepsakes, CVS Health is helping people celebrate in ways that extend far beyond a single day.

Showing up at the nation’s biggest moments

CVS Health is also playing a visible role in some of the country’s most iconic celebrations.

In New York City, CVS Health is participating in a first-of-its-kind Fourth of July celebration in Times Square — bringing a new tradition to one of the country’s most iconic gathering places. As part of the celebration, attendees will be able to:

• Experience a special edition Times Square ball drop, reimagining a familiar New Year’s Eve tradition for America’s 250th anniversary
• Come together for a shared countdown moment, creating a collective way to mark the milestone alongside thousands of others
• Celebrate in the heart of Times Square, surrounded by live programming, entertainment and Fourth of July festivities

This reimagined ball drop brings a powerful sense of connection and shared experience to the celebration — transforming a familiar cultural moment into something entirely new for America250.

In Los Angeles, CVS Health will be part of America’s Block Party and live concert at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — where the experience brings together community, care and celebration in one place. At the July 4 event, attendees will be able to:

• Stop by to talk with CVS pharmacists and learn more about relevant health topics
• Take photos at a Joyward-inspired (CVS’s seasonal home, décor and everyday brand) Americana “front porch” setup, designed as a fun, shareable moment with friends and family
• Enjoy Well Market® snacks, giveaways and interactive moments throughout the day
• As the event wraps up, pick up samples and takeaways on their way out

In Boston, CVS Health is helping people celebrate one of the nation’s most historic Fourth of July celebrations — with a presence throughout the city’s iconic parade route and Faneuil Hall traditions. Attendees will be able to:

• Capture and share the moment through CVS Photo experiences, part of its role as the Official Memory Maker of America250
• Be part of Boston’s longstanding traditions, including the Independence Day parade and Declaration of Independence reading
• Stop by interactive, block party-style spaces in high-traffic areas like Sam Adams Park
• Pick up day-of essentials like water, sunscreen and snacks while moving through the celebration

Bringing a national celebration closer to home

While major cities host headline events, most Fourth of July celebrations happen locally. CVS Health’s reach helps bring this historic national milestone closer to home — making it more accessible and rooted in community.

• More than 600 CVS Pharmacy locations are within one mile of parade routes, making it easy for customers to access last-minute essentials like snacks, drinks and celebration items
• Neighborhood block parties in select markets will create approachable, family-friendly moments for local communities

Creating lasting impact through America Gives

Beyond helping people celebrate, CVS Health is also focused on creating a meaningful legacy of community impact.

As part of America Gives — a nationwide effort to inspire volunteerism and civic participation — CVS Health is helping mobilize colleagues and communities to give back in ways that matter locally.

This effort reflects a broader vision for America250: one where success is measured not only by participation in events, but by the collective impact created through service, community engagement and shared purpose.

Continuing the celebration beyond July 4

While July 4 marks a defining moment, America250 is designed to extend far beyond a single day — and CVS Health’s role will continue alongside it. Through a combination of national visibility, local engagement and community impact, CVS Health is helping shape a celebration that is not only memorable, but lasting — rooted in connection, shared experiences and ongoing support for the communities it serves.

Holiday hours

CVS Pharmacy locations will be open on July 4, although some stores may have reduced hours. Customers are encouraged to call their local store or visit cvs.com to confirm hours before visiting.

Looking for an A250 event close to home? Explore celebrations happening near you and plan your day.

Sustainability is no longer a side conversation. For technology partners, it is increasingly shaping how businesses win, retain, and grow customer relationships. It is influencing procurement decisions, driving new regulatory expectations, and redefining what long-term value looks like across the IT ecosystem.

As sustainability becomes increasingly embedded in business strategy, the focus is shifting towards measurable outcomes, scalable transformation, and commercial value creation. That is what the Lenovo 360 Circle Summit 2026 set out to address.

Held from 2–4 June 2026, the Lenovo 360 Circle Summit brought together senior partners for a focused, executive-level exchange on how sustainability can move beyond ambition and into practical business transformation. Rather than acting as a forum for discussion alone, the Summit was designed to equip partners with tangible frameworks, peer-led insight, and real-world approaches they could take back into their organisations.

At its core, the Summit reflects the broader ambition of the Lenovo 360 Circle community: to help partners turn sustainability into a driver of growth, differentiation, and long-term resilience.

As Virginie Le Barbu, Executive Director, Global Sustainability International Markets, Lenovo said:

“Sustainable transformation is not only about doing the right thing. It is about building stronger, more resilient businesses that are ready for the future. Through Lenovo 360 Circle, we are helping partners move from ambition to action, from action to measurable impact, and from individual progress to shared leadership across the ecosystem.”

Turning ambition into action

Across the industry, sustainability strategies are becoming more defined. Yet many organisations still face a gap between intent and execution. Translating high-level commitments into operational change, customer value, and measurable outcomes remains complex.

The theme of this year’s Summit, “From Vision to Value”, reflected a clear shift in the sustainability conversation. Many organisations now understand why sustainability matters. The harder question is how to operationalise it.

That challenge shaped the Summit experience. Executive panels, peer discussions, working sessions, external perspectives, and hands-on experience zones were designed to help partners move beyond broad intent and into practical application. Contributions from external speakers, including John Elkington, author and founder of the Triple Bottom Line, and Sir Ronald Cohen, a pioneer of impact investing, added wider context and challenge, helping partners connect sustainability priorities to the realities of leadership, transformation, and long-term business value.

Lenovo’s role throughout was as a convenor and enabler. Rather than using the Summit as a product showcase, Lenovo created a space for shared learning, honest discussion, and practical progress. This reflects the purpose of Lenovo 360 Circle itself: to bring partners, business leaders, sustainability experts, and alliance organisations together so that shared challenges can become collective strengths.

Artificial intelligence also featured as part of this conversation, particularly in how it can support smarter decision-making, optimise resource use, and accelerate sustainability outcomes when applied with intent. The importance of responsible AI was also highlighted, recognising that strong governance, transparency, and accountability are essential to building trust and ensuring AI delivers sustainable, long-term value.

Throughout, the emphasis remained consistent: sustainability must deliver business value. It must support growth, strengthen customer relationships, and create new opportunities rather than sit alongside them.

A practical journey from data to value

A key feature of the Summit was the experience-led zones, which brought the “From Vision to Value” theme to life through a practical sustainability journey. The Experience Zone emerged as one of the Summit’s defining features, giving participants a vivid, hands-on view of what it means to move “From Vision to Value.” Rather than presenting sustainability as an abstract ambition, the zone invited attendees to experience it as a practical business journey, one that begins with trusted data, advances through circular innovation, and culminates in more efficient, higher-performing operations.

Across three interconnected spaces, participants saw how ESG data can sharpen decision-making, how circular economy models can extend product life and recover value, and how energy efficiency is becoming a critical lever for both resilience and competitiveness. More than an exhibition, the Experience Zone captured the spirit of the Lenovo 360 Circle Summit itself: sustainability not as a parallel conversation, but as a fast-evolving force shaping the future of technology and business.

Beyond the sessions, the Summit also included the experiential blind football activity, “Football for All”, designed to encourage empathy, inclusion, and shared perspective, reinforcing the human side of sustainable transformation.

Lenovo 360 Circle Summit sponsors AMD, Intel, Logitech, and Schneider Electric also contributed to the wider conversation, bringing perspectives across performance, circularity, energy management, and sustainable technology innovation.

Collaboration as a business advantage

One of the strongest messages from the Summit was that no organisation can solve sustainability challenges alone. The IT industry operates through ecosystems, and sustainable progress depends on those ecosystems working more intelligently together.

This is where Lenovo 360 Circle creates distinct value. The community is structured to support partners at different stages of maturity, from those taking their first steps to those already leading with advanced sustainability strategies. Through the Connect, Learn, and Lead stages, partners can access the right level of guidance, resources, and peer collaboration to accelerate progress.

For early-stage partners, that may mean gaining clarity on priorities and accessing practical learning. For more advanced partners, it may mean engaging in focus groups, sharing best practices, accessing deeper ESG insight, and helping shape future approaches to sustainability across the channel.

This staged model matters because sustainability transformation is not linear. Different partners face different pressures, customer expectations, and market opportunities. Lenovo 360 Circle provides a framework that allows partners to progress in a way that is structured, relevant, and commercially meaningful. Pioneering a staged engagement approach aligned to the UN Global Compact engagement framework, the community supports partners at every stage of their sustainability journey, from early exploration through to industry leadership.

Recognising progress and leadership

The Lenovo 360 Circle Awards also formed an important part of the Summit’s wider purpose. The awards recognise more than achievement. They highlight meaningful progress across the ecosystem and celebrate partners that are translating sustainability commitments into measurable impact.

By recognising transformation, collaboration, climate action, social impact, and continuous improvement, the awards reinforce the behaviours the wider community is designed to encourage. They also help create proof points that partners can take back into their own businesses and customer conversations.

This recognition matters because sustainability leadership is increasingly visible. Customers want evidence. Partners want differentiation. The wider ecosystem needs examples of what progress looks like in practice. The Lenovo 360 Circle Awards are judged by an independent panel of leading sustainability experts, practitioners, and thought leaders, bringing deep industry expertise and a broad perspective on what meaningful progress and impact look like across the partner ecosystem.

Lenovo executives assess the regional partner excellence awards, while the specialist sustainability categories are evaluated by external practitioners and thought leaders with deep expertise across sustainability, innovation, and business transformation.

Our Lenovo 360 Circle Summit ’26 award winners are…

• Outstanding Global Partner Excellence Award – Computacenter
• Outstanding Global Partner Excellence Award CONNECT – Professional Technology Solutions
• Outstanding Partner Excellence Award EMEA – Softcat and TD SYNNEX
• Outstanding Partner Excellence Award AP – Redington
• Outstanding Partner Excellence Award NA – CDW
• Outstanding Partner Excellence Award LATAM – Exing
• Sustainability Individual Champion Award – Sheryl Moore, Converge Technology Solutions
• Most Improved Sustainability Partner Award – SHI
• Outstanding Sustainability Collaboration Spirit Award -TD SYNNEX
• Energy Efficiency Leadership Award – Ingram Micro
• Outstanding Climate Action Award – SHI
• Circular Economy Leadership Award – Foxway
• Best Social Impact Initiative Award – CDW

A community built for long-term transformation

The Summit demonstrated the strength of Lenovo 360 Circle as a community that enables partners to build capability, share expertise, and create measurable business value through sustainability.

That is what makes the Lenovo 360 Circle Summit relevant even beyond those in attendance. For senior partners across the Lenovo ecosystem, the message is clear: sustainability is becoming central to how technology businesses compete, grow, and create value. The organisations that act now will be better prepared for future customer expectations, regulatory demands, and market change.

Lenovo 360 Circle gives partners a way to act with more confidence. It brings together expertise, structure, peer learning, practical tools, and recognition. It helps turn sustainability from something complex and sometimes overwhelming into something that can be understood, measured, embedded, and scaled.

The Lenovo 360 Circle Summit 2026 demonstrated how sustainability can be translated into measurable value, stronger partnerships, and meaningful business transformation through practical action and collaboration.

If you’re running a small business, one of the most important investments you can make is securing your own domain name.

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to grow your brand online, a domain name serves as your business’s online home base.

Entrepreneurs today rely solely on social media profiles or online marketplace listings. While those channels can help you reach customers, they don’t give you full control over your online presence. A domain name does.

At GoDaddy, we’re known as the world leader in domains. We understand the importance a domain plays in empowering entrepreneurs at every stage of their business.

To help you better understand these benefits, we’re sharing our top 10 reasons every small business should own a domain name.

Take a look…

1. Own Your Online Identity

   Social media platforms can change overnight. Your domain is a digital asset that belongs to you. 

2. Protect Your Brand

   Securing your domain prevents others from claiming your business name online. 

3. Look More Professional

   A custom domain like YourBusiness.com instantly makes your business appear more credible and established.

4. It’s Affordable

   A domain is one of the lowest-cost investments you can make in your business’s long-term success. 

5. Help Customers Find You

   A domain gives customers a central place to learn about your business, products, and services.

6. Support Your Marketing

   Use your domain for your website, landing pages, email campaigns, promotions, and more. 

7. Create Branded Email Addresses

   An email like info@yourbusiness.com builds trust with customers and reinforces your brand.

8. Stand Out from Competitors

   A memorable domain helps customers remember your business and choose you over the competition. 

9. Prepare for Growth

   A domain creates a foundation for future expansion, whether that’s ecommerce, bookings, or new services. 

10. Meet Customer Expectations

    Today’s customers expect legitimate businesses to have a website they can visit.

A domain name is much more than a website address. It’s the foundation of your online brand.

It helps customers find you, builds trust, protects your business identity, and gives you the flexibility to grow on your own terms. Whether you’re launching a new venture or strengthening an existing one, securing a domain name is one of the smartest and most cost-effective decisions you can make.

Visit GoDaddy Domains today to start building a stronger online presence for your business.

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Originally published on Devex.com

Lung cancer continues to be a leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States — a statistic made more tragic by the fact that early-stage diagnoses carry an 80% cure rate. However, screening rates remain critically low — particularly within medically underserved communities — leading to a cycle where most patients are only diagnosed once the disease has reached an advanced, symptomatic, and less treatable stage.

Speaking with Devex, Dr. Drew Moghanaki, professor and chief of thoracic oncology at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health’s Department of Radiation Oncology, discusses the evolution of lung cancer screening infrastructure, including how public-private partnerships are successfully translating clinical evidence into scalable, equity-focused solutions.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What factors most strongly contribute to disparities in lung cancer risk and diagnosis, and why is early detection such a critical intervention point for addressing them?

I have discovered that a key factor that influences lung cancer outcomes is largely tied to access to care. That is, patients who are adequately insured are more likely to receive timely diagnoses, access high-quality treatment, and ultimately achieve better outcomes than those who are uninsured or underinsured.

Another factor concerns the challenges that underresourced communities face in providing appropriate lung cancer screening and treatment expertise, regardless of individual patient insurance status. For example, a local hospital might not have high-quality surgery, radiotherapy, or medical oncology services. They might not even be committed to supporting a lung cancer screening, diagnosis, or treatment program due to competing priorities and limited resources.

Finally, I’ve come to appreciate the significant role of individual patient health literacy in lung cancer outcomes — particularly at the earliest stages of detection. Some patients may not fully understand that lung cancer, when caught early, can be treatable or even curable. This gap in understanding can lead to individual nihilism, which can contribute to missed appointments and incomplete evaluations, which can delay diagnosis and allow the lung tumor to spread and no longer be curable.

What are some of the lessons you learned from the VA-PALS implementation program that made it the most successful lung screening program across the VA, and how did it address healthcare disparities?

VA-PALS [the Veterans Affairs Partnership to Increase Access to Lung Screening] was a public-private partnership from 2017-2022 that was cosponsored by the VA Office of Rural Health and the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation. It built a network of lung screening centers across the VA [Department of Veteran Affairs] by using an implementation approach that ensured all veterans — regardless of where they lived — were informed and counseled about the potential benefits of early detection.

The success of VA-PALS, in which we screened over 30,000 veterans, ultimately led the VA to establish the National Center for Lung Cancer Screening, which gave rise to enterprise-wide policies requiring that all veterans over the age of 50 be assessed for screening eligibility wherever they receive care. This now allows the VA to offer lung screening as standard of care for all veterans confirmed eligible, which truly minimizes disparities, given it supports the entire population receiving care through the VA.

A key lesson we learned through VA-PALS is that successfully implementing a new clinical program, such as lung cancer screening, requires a critical mass of engaged people, sufficient resources, and a genuine commitment from each hospital’s administration to enact the policy changes needed to sustain its growth. We learned that without those foundational elements, individual screening programs can become isolated and unsupported, leaving the people doing that work feeling alone and vulnerable to burnout and attrition.

These lessons ultimately led us to understand that when you build a team across diverse geographic locations around a shared mission that everyone feels a sense of ownership in, the team becomes passionate and, frankly, unstoppable. People show up differently when they understand they are part of something larger than themselves and that their work is directly saving lives. We have certainly carried this awareness into our latest lung screening implementation project, named CAL-PALS (California Partnerships to Increase Access to Lung Cancer Screening), where everyone involved is highly engaged and willing to make time to build new lung screening programs.

Why did you choose to get involved in building lung screening programs outside the VA?

Following my recruitment to UCLA in 2021 to lead our department’s lung cancer program, I recognized a significant gap in the state’s priority for lung screening. I learned the state of California was second to last in the nation in lung cancer screening, which, to me, was simply unacceptable for a state that is a leader in public health and first outlawed smoking in the 1990s.

In response, a collaboration was established between leading implementation scientists at UCLA from the schools of medicine and public health, who drew on lessons from VA-PALS to develop a partnership with two regional community hospitals that had expressed interest in developing lung screening programs but had not yet moved forward with a concrete plan. We felt that if we could launch two new lung screening programs in regional hospitals, we could later replicate the implementation approach statewide by leveraging the network of the University of California healthcare systems and help get the state back into a leading position in driving down lung cancer mortality beyond smoking cessation strategies.

With a generous grant from the BMS Foundation, we helped kick-start each local hospital’s hiring of a full-time advanced practice provider and supported them in building the clinical workflows necessary to reach patients at risk for lung cancer and to get those eligible screened. Our team at UCLA is now providing each of these hospitals, which are both part of CommonSpirit Health, with expertise in public health, implementation science, lung cancer screening, and treatment to help them accelerate their development.

You previously shared that cancer outcomes within the VA have a narrow, or even potentially nonexistent, racial disparity gap compared to what we see in the general population. Can you tell us more about this?

Our research teams in the VA had observed over the years, through a growing body of published literature, that Black veterans receiving care through the VA were achieving similar cancer outcomes as compared to non-Black veterans. This stands in stark contrast to what we see in the general U.S. population, where disparities between racial groups persist — and, in many cases, are not narrowing.

Our research team investigated this by analyzing the body of literature published over the past decade on outcomes for veterans with cancer to determine whether this was true. What we found was that race did not predict worse outcomes among those with different cancer types, which implies that integrated healthcare systems like the VA, which provide near-equitable access to comprehensive cancer care, have the potential to substantially reduce or even eliminate racial disparities in cancer outcomes. Our research report was recently accepted and will be published soon.

Smoking history often carries a social stigma that prevents people from seeking help. How does your team approach patient outreach to make screening feel like a proactive health step rather than a judgment?

We are acutely aware that the public at large has long marginalized people who smoke. We consider this an unintended consequence of smoking cessation programs that, for more than half a century, have used fear, guilt, and shame as motivational tools to discourage people from starting and to encourage those currently smoking to quit. Unfortunately, the stigma this creates carries over whenever a person who is or was addicted to cigarettes later develops lung cancer, which can affect not only their well-being but also their willingness to pursue treatment.

This issue is real, and something we address head-on in the VA, where there is a culture that aims to never discriminate against any of our veterans to embody the military culture of leaving no one behind, regardless of their circumstances, including a history of smoking addiction. I wish every healthcare system had a similar culture, as I believe it is absolutely critical to destigmatize the smoking component of lung screening eligibility if we want to reach all patients who need this preventive service.

As you look ahead, how do programs such as CAL‑PALS point toward a future “gold standard” for lung cancer screening, and what would it take to replicate this model in other high‑burden communities nationwide?

Our CAL-PALS implementation project is actually quite straightforward. It partners a high-resource institution, such as UCLA, that has expertise in public health and lung cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment, with a pair of highly motivated community hospitals with strong administrative support that want to make a meaningful and measurable difference in their patients’ lives. I encourage all healthcare environments to seek similar partnership opportunities as we aim to build more robust lung screening programs nationwide.

I also recommend that community hospitals explore emerging software technologies that are now available to simplify the implementation and maintenance of early detection programs. Particularly through commercially available software tracking systems that are now implemented in hundreds of hospitals across the country and are successfully leveraging artificial intelligence and computational linguistics to scan electronic medical records, review radiology reports, flag incidental findings, and automate care coordination to ensure that patients who receive a diagnosis are transitioned promptly into workup and treatment. Our CAL-PALS partner hospitals have already installed one of these systems, and it is helping us build our programs even more efficiently than we did during the VA-PALS program.

Visit Strengthening Care Systems — a series in collaboration with the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation on raising awareness of the scale of the global lung cancer burden and the systems-level changes required to address it.