Latest Conference Articles

A leader at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement offers a framework for diabetes educators to embrace a shift in thinking about healthcare delivery.

Tim Gronniger, MPP, MHSA, senior vice president of development and strategy at Caravan Health, discusses the struggles that organizations face when attempting to make a switch to new payment models, and how that switch can be improved in the future.

Three federal officials discussed the status of research, payer coverage, and referrals for the National Diabetes Prevention Program, as well as the rollout of the Medicare program for eligible seniors.

The rise of digital health alongside the transformation of reimbursement from fee-for-service to value-based care is allowing patients to fully participate in their own care, according to a leader with one of the top digital health companies in diabetes care.

Robert A. Gabbay, MD, PhD, FACP, chief medical officer and senior vice president at Joslin Diabetes Center, said health systems need people with the skill sets that diabetes educators possess to make the transition to a reimbursement system based on quality, prevention, and eliminating costs.

I would say that we’re making progress in terms of engaging consumers in quality of care, explained Dennis P. Scanlon, PhD, professor, Health Policy and Administration, and director, Center for Health Care and Policy Research, Pennsylvania State University.

Technology is starting to help identify patients with social determinants of health issues, but there remain gaps in connecting that data in the electronic health record (EHR) to resources, said Rachel Gold, PhD, MPH, investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research and lead research scientist at OCHIN.

Hospital leaders are concerned about how to get ready to take on more risk, said Tim Gronniger, MPP, MHSA, senior vice president of development and strategy at Caravan Health.

In markets with a lot of provider consolidation, employers are looking at innovative ways to deliver care to their employees for less money, such as on-site clinics or telehealth, explained Suzanne Delbanco, PhD, MPH, executive director of Catalyst for Payment Reform. VIDE

Organizations are trying to think about how they can involve team-based care by incorporating individuals who have a certain skill set that can relieve the practicing clinician, physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant from some of the burden, explained Dennis P. Scanlon, PhD, professor, Health Policy and Administration, and director, Center for Health Care and Policy Research, Pennsylvania State University.

The free flow of data needs to be an intrinsic part of the way we think about healthcare in this country, said Harlan Krumholz, MD, SM, the Harold H. Hines Jr professor, Medicine and Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale School of Medicine, and director, Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Yale-New Haven Hospital.

With little evidence, it is still difficult to know how to screen patients for social determinants of health issues, explained Rachel Gold, PhD, MPH, investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research and lead research scientist at OCHIN.

Individuals, families, and local, state, and federal government all have incurred costs as a result of the opioid epidemic, explained Dennis P. Scanlon, PhD, professor, Health Policy and Administration, and director, Center for Health Care and Policy Research, Pennsylvania State University.

We know that there are a lot of problems with precision medicine and lots of areas that we need to define better, but that shouldn’t stop us from moving forward and trying to optimize the care for our patients, said Michael Thompson, MD, PhD, FASCO, Aurora Advanced Healthcare.

Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, instructor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, attending physician of medical oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, outlines the role of adjuvant therapy in treating patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, as well as the absence of biomarkers in this patient population.

If we’re truly serious about being outcomes oriented in healthcare, we can’t come near accomplishing what we’d like to accomplish without direct intervention with regard to social determinants, explained Clifford Goodman, PhD, senior vice president and director, Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research, The Lewin Group.

We need to bring together our real-world data and our reimbursement systems to recognize the fact that a lot of what could be gained by precision medicine is going to be based on a lot of research, explained Peter Paul Yu, MD, FASCO, FACP, physician-in-chief, Hartford HealthCare Cancer Center.

I think the biggest surprise in the move toward value-based care is that there’s a lot of organizations sitting on the fence in limbo because the payment mechanism is still built off a fee-for-service chassis, said Dennis P. Scanlon, PhD, professor, Health Policy and Administration, and director, Center for Health Care and Policy Research, Pennsylvania State University.

John Schorge, MD, associate editor of The Green Journal, and Gynecologic Oncologist at Tufts Medical Center, discusses the findings of his study on neoadjuvant chemotherapy treatment of patients with advanced ovarian cancer.

The most common question patients ask when they start a new treatment after a new diagnosis is "what will this do to me?" explained Sally Okun, RN, MMHS, vice president, Policy and Ethics, PatientsLikeMe.

Different value-based payment approaches are evolving for different sorts of conditions, different sorts of financial circumstances, and other factors, explained Clifford Goodman, PhD, senior vice president and director, Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research, The Lewin Group.

There are small subgroups within each tumor type and within each molecular type, and someday, we might be able to actually pair the 2 to give patients a little bit more personalization and precision to their treatments, said Victoria Villaflor, MD, associate professor of Medicine, hematology and oncology.

Peter Paul Yu, MD, FASCO, FACP, physician-in-chief, Hartford HealthCare Cancer Center, discusses the shift toward interoperability among electronic health record systems and efforts needed to accelerate this shift.

Michael Thompson, MD, PhD, FASCO, Aurora Advanced Healthcare, discusses challenges associated with conducting precision medicine trials in the community setting.

Rear Admiral Wanda Barfield, MD, MPH, director of the Division of Reproductive Health for the CDC, discusses the initiatives that have played a role in the decrease of teen pregnancy in the United States.

The purpose of Project Baseline is to map human health so we can convert from a reactive healthcare system to a proactive healthcare system, explained Adrian F. Hernandez, MD, MHS, vice dean, clinical research, Duke University School of Medicine

It’s been years since a large portion of colon cancer patients have seen any innovations in treatment. However, there are dietary and physical behavioral changes individuals can make that positively impact colon cancer survival said Leonard Saltz, MD, executive director of Clinical Value and Sustainability, head of Colorectal Oncology Section, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

John Schorge, MD, associate editor of The Green Journal, and Gynecologic Oncologist at Tufts Medical Center, discusses different prevention methods in ovarian cancer.