COA Offers Playbook to Help Community Oncology Practices Navigate AI Partnerships

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help community oncology practices streamline call centers, draw revenue from federal reimbursement programs, and put key data at doctors’ fingertips.

AI vendors promise all this to physicians, and more.

But while there are ways for AI to improve care quality and ease administrative burden, physicians who are trained in patient care—not the finer points of technology contracting—can make costly missteps when selecting vendors. To prevent this, the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) last week released its AI Playbook, a “how to” manual that helps practice leaders evaluate their needs, select partners that make sense, and drive relationships that get the most from AI for their patients and care teams.

Webinars are set for July 8 and July 27, both starting at 3 PM, to introduce community oncology leaders to the COA AI Playbook. Registration for the first webinar can be found here. A third webinar is planned.

Developed by COA’s AI & Digital Transformation Committee, the AI Playbook “draws on firsthand experience evaluating and implementing AI technologies in independent community oncology practices,” according to a statement from COA.

The playbook is not focused on specific vendors or products, but instead helps practice leaders “identify operational challenges, evaluate technology opportunities, manage risk, and implement new tools in a disciplined and measurable way,” the statement said.

Committee Cochair Jeff Hunnicutt, who just concluded an 8-year run as CEO of Highlands Oncology, said oncology practices hear about a new AI solution almost daily.

“AI has moved from a future conversation to an everyday operational reality,” he said in an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care.

AI tools can help address real challenges, such as speeding prior authorization (PA) or offloading mundane tasks and that draw nurses away from patient care. “There’s no shortage of solutions,” Hunnicutt said. COA’s task was to give practices “a disciplined approach” for evaluating vendors, so they end up with partners that are responsive to their needs, not businesses trying to promote products that are a poor fit.

Priorities include helping practices ask questions how willing a vendor is to collaborate with other technology partners. This trend is emerging as practices look for solutions across diverse areas such as AI scribes to create medical notes and remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM).

The AI playbook offers guidance for oncology practices on:

• Identifying and prioritizing meaningful AI use cases
• Establishing governance and accountability structures
• Evaluating technology vendors and contract terms
• Managing cybersecurity and patient data considerations
• Planning, measuring, and scaling pilot programs
• Preparing for future policy and regulatory developments

Rapid Work by a Dedicated Committee

Helping practices navigate AI has been a priority of COA President Debra Patt, MD, PhD, MBA, FASCO, since she took the helm of the community oncology organization in January 2025. Patt and Hunnicutt have collaborated on several technology initiatives that involve AI, notably in RTM.

Although COA’s priority remains helping practices present a unified front for its legislative and regulatory agenda, the need for the group to offer guidance in AI became clear, Hunnicutt said. “Over last 9 to 12 months, COA has focused on digital transformation, asking where we can help practices enter the space and navigate it successfully,” he said.

“Community oncology practices are caring for patients in an era of remarkable advances in both cancer treatment and health care technology,” said Patt, who has led technology and AI initiative for years at Texas Oncology, where she is executive vice president of policy and strategy. “But innovation alone does not improve care; practices need a clear path for evaluating new tools and determining whether they deliver meaningful value for patients and providers. The COA AI Playbook is designed to help practices navigate those decisions.”

Hunnicutt said he was pleased to see how quickly members of the AI & Digital Transformation Committee came together to make the Playbook happen. Although the committee began with a half-dozen members from the practice level, in time managed service organizations (MSOs) that serve multiple organizations joined the process, which Hunnicutt saw as a good sign. “Obviously, something was hitting a chord,” he said.

The resulting resource is “vendor agnostic,” he said. Still, an obvious question for practices once they have a decision-making framework is who they should select. This year’s COA Community Oncology Conference marked the first time technology companies had a chance to participate in a showcase highlighting new offerings. Offering an outlet for vendors who are making progress and have excellent case studies with practices is of interest to COA, Hunnicutt said.

The COA AI Playbook will be “a living resource” to be updated as technologies mature and the regulatory landscape shifts, Hunnicutt said. “AI is evolving way too quickly,” so the committee will be meeting to refresh the document regularly on what has changed.

“I don’t see this being a one-time initiative,” he said.

REGISTRATION: Introducing the COA AI Playbook: A Framework for Evaluating and Implementing AI in Community Oncology, Wednesday, July 8, at 3 PM ET. Attend an overview of the COA AI Playbook’s core concepts, practical tools, and implementation framework.

COA AI PLAYBOOK is available here.