Global Scholars Projects: Ana Patricia Alcasabas, MD, MSc

About the Global Scholars Project

In the Philippines, the Universal Healthcare package for standard-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the PhilHealth ALL Z Package (ALLZP), was introduced in 2012, featuring higher reimbursement levels and no copayment. The aim was to prevent catastrophic health spending and improve survival rates. The package was expected to decrease the high rates of treatment refusal and abandonment among families, but there have been reports of low enrollment rates and inadequate financial protection. 

This project featured an implementation science review of the PhilHealth ALLZP in eight hospitals nationwide using the PRISM–RE-AIM framework. Interviews and analysis revealed:

• Patients’ socioeconomic vulnerability and lack of access to support networks affected their ability to start and remain in the program, and 

• Confusion about eligibility and processes, as well as clerical burdens, influenced implementers’ adoption of the ALLZP. 

The project identified 12 potential interventions, with a priority then placed on developing educational materials to address key barriers.

Publications

Project Assets

Fishbone

Logic Model

About the Scholar

Ana Patricia Alcasabas earned her medical degree from the University of the Philippines in 1994. Early in her career, she served as a primary health care physician for an indigenous community on Mindoro Island, Philippines — an experience that strengthened her commitment to public health and community-based health education. 

She later worked as a pediatric oncology consultant at the National University Hospital, Singapore, where she helped develop a retinoblastoma program serving patients from Southern Philippines in collaboration with Southern Philippines Medical Center and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. 

Alcasabas subsequently returned to the University of the Philippines - Philippine General Hospital, where she led the Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Division and strengthened multidisciplinary care and childhood cancer data systems in partnership with St. Jude. At the national level, she led several initiatives of the World Health Organization Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer, including a national assessment of pediatric cancer services and development of a hospital-based patient navigation program.