Latest Conference Articles

Only 1 in 3 patients will achieve remission on their first antidepressant, and 67% of patients require 4 antidepressant trials before symptoms remit, said Thomas L. Schwartz, MD, during a session on strategies for switching, combining, or augmenting treatments for patients with major depressive disorder.

There is no known gene for any major psychiatric disorder, nor is one ever likely to be found, explained Stephan M. Stahl, MD, PhD, adjunct professor of psychiatry, University of California San Diego, during an overview of the age of personalized medicine and the role of pharmacogenetics at a session of the 2017 Neuroscience Education Institute Congress.

Digital health, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and precision medicine are the areas where there is the most excitement in innovations for cardiovascular care, said John Rumsfeld, MD, PhD, chief innovation officer at the American College of Cardiology.

In a Tuesday panel discussion at The American College of Rheumatology’s 2017 Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, representatives from HHS, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the CDC outlined ongoing federal initiatives to address the parallel problems of pain and opioid addiction.

On Tuesday afternoon, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) and the National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) presented a draft of their new, jointly developed clinical guideline for treating psoriatic arthritis (PsA), at the ACR 2017 Annual Meeting.

In a Tuesday session at the American College of Rheumatology’s 2017 Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, Greg Mertz, MBA, FACMPE, managing director for Physician Strategies Group, LLC, presented a talk title “Value Contracting: Opportunities of Fantasy?” in which he outlined the current landscape for performance-based contracting.

A recap of abstracts presented at The American College of Rheumatology’s 2017 Annual Meeting, including an analysis of data available in an electronic health records database and outcomes and cost effectiveness of sarilumab.

There are a number of environmental factors with significant public health impacts that people don't necessarily think of; for instance, products out in the market haven't necesarily been tested for safety, which comsumers should keep in mind, explained Jeanette Stingone, PhD, of Mount Sinai Health System.

Kamala Nola, PharmD, MS, professor at the Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy, provided an overview of the drugs that have been approved in the past year for the treatment of inflammatory conditions during a session at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting,

A panel discussion, titled, "Holy MACRA! How to Survive and Thrive in the New Era of MACRA, MIPS and APMs," was presented on Sunday at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.

The title "Reshaping the Relationship Between Physicians and PBMs" suggested that the Sunday session at the 2017 American College of Rheumatology’s Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, would focus on reconciling the goals of providers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), but physicians’ challenges in dealing with PBMs quickly became the primary focus of the panel discussion.

Among the most anticipated sessions at the 2017 meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in San Diego, California was “The Great Debate: Biosimilars…to Switch, or Not to Switch? That Is the Question.”

The healthcare industry is getting better at creating value-based drug pricing arrangements, and even if they never dominate the market, there will always be a place for these contracts, said Ira Klein, MD, MBA, FACP, senior director of healthcare quality strategy for the Strategic Customer Group at Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

The biggest challenges in promoting cardiovascular prevention strategies is motivating people to change a lifetime of poor habits into healthier habits, explained Christi Deaton, PhD, RN, FAHA, FESC, of the University of Cambridge.

During the final panel at the fall meeting of the ACO & Emerging Healthcare Delivery Coalition® in Nashville, Tennessee, panelists discussed the progress specialties have made in moving to value-based payment models, as well as the challenges facing the industry as a whole. The panel consisted of 3 individuals who provided perspectives from specific specialties, and 1 with an overall policy perspective.

Improving treatment for addiction means first recognizing that addiction is a chronic disease and also understanding that relapse is part of the disease process, explained Frank James, MD, JD, of American Society of Addiction Medicine.

There have been tremendous improvements in healthcare quality and performance measurements, but one area where more needs to be done is incorporating social risk factors into these measurements, said Shantanu Agrawal, MD, CEO and president of National Quality Forum.

At the fall ACO & Emerging Healthcare Delivery Coalition®, Clay Alspach, JD, principal at Leavitt Partners, discussed navigating the current political and payment reform landscape, making sense of the uncertainty, and preparing for the unexpected.

A back to back session and panel at the falls’ ACO & Emerging Healthcare Delivery Coalition focused on the importance of utilizing integrated healthcare to treat individuals with addiction and ensuring physicians are educated on understanding addiction.

Over 2 years, the National Quality Forum (NQF) studied how to best incorporate social risk factors into healthcare measurements and identified the biggest challenges, said Shantanu Agrawal, MD, MPhil, CEO and president of NQF.

A simple model can help health systems incorporate the social determinants of health into their clinical programs, according to presenters at the National Association of Managed Care Physicians Fall Managed Care Forum 2017.

At a session during the National Association of Managed Care Physicians Fall Managed Care Forum 2017, speakers discussed how new approaches to encouraging medication adherence can help improve outcomes in patients with chronic diseases.

This fall's ACO & Emerging Healthcare Delivery Coalition

David V. Axene, FSA, FCA, CERA, MAAA, outlined how more accurately measuring and evaluating the performance of accountable care organizations (ACOs) can help both health plans and providers succeed in their risk sharing contracts during a session at the National Association of Managed Care Physicians Fall Managed Care Forum 2017.

James R. Jett, MD, gave an overview of the advances in diagnosis and treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) during a session at the National Association of Managed Care Physicians Fall Managed Care Forum 2017.

Industries including healthcare continue to adapt to the increasingly powerful voice of the consumer, according to Venkat Inumella, MBA, associate partner at McKinsey, who discussed this trend toward consumerism during the first keynote session of the National Association of Managed Care Physicians Fall Managed Care Forum 2017.

At the National Association of Managed Care Physicians Fall Managed Care Forum 2017, James J. Bleicher, MD, MHCM, regional president of SSM Health, discussed the foundational steps necessary for healthcare organizations looking to transform their business to focus on population health.

Tuple Health, a healthcare technology startup, interviewed some of the stakeholders participating in value-based care delivery and OCM, to gain their perspective of the state of cancer care and healthcare reform. The results were presented at the Community Oncology Alliance Payer Exchange Summit on Oncology Payment Reform.