Dr. Thomas A. Aloia named Vice President and National Oncology Director
Thomas A. Aloia, MD, MHCM, FACS, will be joining Ascension in the newly created role of Vice President and National Oncology Director, effective January 1, 2021. Dr. Aloia will play a crucial physician leadership role in the development of a national oncology service line across Ascension. He will report to Richard Fogel, MD, FACC, FHRS, Senior Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, Clinical & Network Services, Ascension.
“Together with clinical and operational leaders across our national health ministry, Dr. Aloia will lead the creation and execution of a vision for the delivery of cancer services that is rooted in quality, growth and stewardship across the many communities we serve,” Dr. Fogel said. “He will lead development of a service line that is differentiated and/or distinguished by its national scale, patient experience and quality outcomes.”
“Dr. Aloia is an experienced physician executive with deep knowledge of oncology and the issues facing the discipline, the practitioners and the delivery of high quality, with an emphasis on patient and family experience,” said Joseph Cacchione, MD, FACC, Executive Vice President, Clinical & Network Services, Ascension.
Dr. Aloia currently serves as Chief Quality Officer and Head of the Institute of Cancer Care Innovation at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, having served in multiple administrative roles in the areas of patient safety, quality, and outcomes. He received his medical degree from the University of California – Los Angeles Geffen School of Medicine. His postgraduate training included a general and thoracic surgery residency at Duke University Medical Center and fellowships in Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson and Hepatobiliary Surgery/Liver Transplantation at the Paul Brousse Hospital in Paris, France. Dr. Aloia completed a Certificate in Healthcare Management at the Rice University (Jones) Business School and completed the Harvard School of Public Health Master’s in Healthcare Management degree program last year.
Dr. Aloia has focused his administrative efforts in the areas of patient safety, quality and functional outcomes including his roles as the ACS NSQIP Surgeon Champion, the Division of Surgery Director of Quality and Outcomes, Chief Value and Quality Officer, and Executive Director of Network Outcomes. He also has served as the Medical Director of the MD Anderson Gastrointestinal Disease Center and the Head of the Institute for Cancer Care Innovation.
His clinical expertise is in hepatobiliary surgery, gastrointestinal surgical oncology, minimally invasive surgery and liver transplantation surgery. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts in the focus areas of surgical outcomes, GI oncology, enhanced recovery and value-based healthcare. He serves as an ad hoc reviewer for multiple medical and surgical journals and is on the editorial board of The Journal of Oncology Practice, Annals of Surgery and the Annals of Surgical Oncology.
He is currently a professor of surgical oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he focuses his clinical and academic energy on the management of primary and secondary hepatobiliary malignancies.