Clinical

What we're reading, March 8, 2016: rate of unplanned pregnancies in the US is at a 30-year low; doctors told they are overprescribing addictive medicines don't change their behavior; and despite Obamacare, surprise medical bills find a way.

Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have sent a letter to the FDA urging the regulatory body to find efficient ways to distribute expensive cancer drugs.

Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, vice president of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare, stresses the importance of medical leadership in promoting mHealth and telemedicine in order to get physicians comfortable with these new technologies.

A novel unit created to care for critically ill patients significantly sped access to specialized care.

By monitoring for mutations in the circulating tumor DNA of melanoma patients undergoing treatment, researchers at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute are confident they can predict how patients will respond to their treatment and whether their disease would relapse.

Despite various attempts to increase the vaccination rate among adults, Medicare beneficiaries are still susceptible to extensive cost-sharing for recommended vaccines, according to a study by Avalere.

Just 2 days after being rejected by cost regulators in the UK, ibrutinib has been approved for the frontline treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in the United States.

To discuss the challenges with the implementation of value tools, the Association of Community Cancer Centers invited a panel of experts during its 42nd annual meeting on policy, value, and quality in Washington, DC.

What we're reading, March 4, 2016: Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, 20 million people have signed up for healthcare coverage; the FDA has a backlog of 4000 drug applications waiting for approval; and Flint, Michigan, receives expanded Medicaid coverage.

Immunotherapy represents the "next frontier" in cancer care, according to Joseph Alvarnas, MD, of City of Hope, who is editor-in-chief of Evidence-Based Oncology.

At Cancerscape, the Association of Community Cancer Center’s 42nd annual meeting on policy, value, and quality, Kavita Patel, MD, MS, spoke about the clinical imperatives of personalized medicine and the demonstration of value to all stakeholders.

What we're reading, March 3, 2016: additional funding for the opioid abuse bill was shot down in the Senate; Donald Trump releases his plan to replace Obamacare; and Christine Cassel, MD, discusses designing a new medical school.

Study finds no statistically significant duration in the use of mechanical ventilation for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who took acetazolamide, but there was a clinically significant difference.

Two studies presented at the recently concluded 2016 Quality Care Symposium, hosted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, proved that hospital-based palliative care programs achieve their proposed objectives.

Primary care physicians correctly estimate medication adherence of their Medicare patients only half of the time and usually overestimate adherence rates, according to a new study.

Imbruvica, developed by Janssen for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia who are unsuitable to receive chemo-immunotherapy, has been rejected by UK’s National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.

Emanuel F. Petricoin III, PhD, said patients have much to gain from "democratization" as clinical trials move beyond academic centers.

What we're reading, March 2, 2016: FDA commissioner pledges stronger efforts to develop harder-to-abuse painkillers; Olympus Corp. agrees to largest settlement for violating anti-kickback laws; and the Supreme Court hears Texas abortion case with just 8 members on the bench.

Major health information technology (IT) developers and the government are coming together to improve the flow of health information.

The pharmaceutical industry needs to rethink its approach to packaging cancer drugs into a one-size vial to avoid drug wastage and save over $1.7 billion in 2016.

Starting at the very top, with boards and management is one way that healthcare institutions can better diversify their workforce, and doing so will make health equity achievable, said Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Research led by investigators at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center has concluded that adjuvant chemotherapy improved survival compared with patients who received adjuvant chemoradiation in pancreatic cancer.

While survey results show that belief in the importance of comparative effectiveness research is largely solid, its impact is yet to be realized or acknowledged by stakeholders in the United States.

The top stories in managed care this week include findings on cancer survival disparities, CVS Health claimed drug spending growth slowed in 2015, and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey's OMNIA plan is interfering with existing patient-centered medical homes.

Women hospitalized with coronary artery disease are less likely to receive optimal care at discharge compared with men and African Americans have an elevated risk of mortality compared with white patients, study finds.

What we're reading, February 26, 2016: drug makers are facing pressure to calculate the cost of extending a patient's life; a look at how addiction is viewed and treated in the US; and staving off the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

While the cost of the widely used stroke clot-busting drug alteplase has more than doubled over the past decade, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement has remained far behind.

Research advocate Jack Whelan discusses patient involvement in their own care: how to discern which sources are the most reliable, the importance of better incorporating patient-reported outcomes into healthcare, and how patients should become more educated about their care.

A new study questions the maximum-tolerated-dose approach in cancer.

There are multiple barriers to accessing innovative oncology care from the design of healthcare benefits to a patient’s position on the federal poverty level, explained Daniel J. Klein, president and CEO of the Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation.