Sanja Percac-Lima, MD
Sanja Percac-Lima, MD
About Sanja Percac-Lima, MD
Sanja Percac-Lima, MD |
Dr. Percac-Lima is a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital's Chelsea HealthCare Center, serving predominantly low income, Latino and immigrant population. The primary focus of her research and clinical innovations is cancer prevention in ethnic and racial minorities.
In 2006, Dr. Percac-Lima designed a patient navigation program for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening at MGH Chelsea that eliminated disparities in CRC screening at the health center. The National Cancer Institute selected it as one of only eleven evidence based programs to improve CRC screening in United States. For this program Dr. Percac-Lima also received the Prevent Cancer Foundation’s Cancer Prevention Laurel for Innovative Programs.
In her role as the Physician Leader for Cancer Outreach Programs at the Mass General Center for Community Health Improvement, Dr. Percac-Lima is actively involved in efforts to expand navigator programs across cancer centers affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham. With support from Susan G. Komen Massachusetts, she designed a breast cancer screening patient navigation program for women refugees. To be able to reach out to all underserved patients within the Mass General primary care network, Dr. Percac-Lima embedded patient navigation into Mass General Brigham TopCare population management system for comprehensive cancer screening. In collaboration with Mass General Cancer Center, in 2014 she received a grant from Lazarex Cancer Foundation to expand patient navigation and further improve equity in cancer care.
Most recently, Dr. Percac-Lima received a Cancer Control Career Development Award for Primary Care Physicians from American Cancer Society. As part of this award, she has developed and implemented a new patient navigator program to improve screening for lung cancer in high risk smokers receiving care at Mass General health centers.