Data Collection Helps the Delivery of Equitable Value-Based Cancer Care: Coral Omene, MD, PhD

Carefully collecting data on populations can help to inform how providers can better deliver value-based care for typically underserved populations, but the process of gathering that data may place an extra burden on practices and could unintentionally exacerbate disparities, said Coral Omene, MD, PhD, associate professor, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

This transcript has been lightly edited; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

How can we ensure the definition of 'value' in cancer care reflects the diverse needs and priorities of all patient populations, including historically marginalized ones?

This is why the data is collected, and part of the data that's collected should—if it doesn't—include social determinants of health, which is an important metric for minority populations under certain communities. What one finds is that in those populations there are issues with transportation, issues with housing security, [and] issues with access. Gathering this information helps one to target these patients appropriately and intervene with resources that are needed to be able to carry out the care in this value-based way.

That is why carefully collecting such information—racial, social, economic, but importantly, the social determinants of health—helps, especially in these communities that are underserved, typically, for us to be able to carry out, appropriately, for them the value of care that they need based on their circumstances.

Could there be unintended consequences of value-based care models that could exacerbate existing inequities?

Some communities are not able to have all of this analytics and kind of provide the care that's needed. As you can imagine, [for] a lot of this, you need strong administrative support staff. If they're pulling resources from giving care to try to keep abreast of all of the administrative reporting and analysis and gathering of information that's needed, they're pulling the already limited resources from care to do that, and that may exacerbate already [present] disparities. You can see how they might select patients or people who may be able to pay or afford more. That sort of self-selection may happen. Then people who cannot [pay more] may have to travel longer distances to get care where they can, and already for them, if transportation is already a problem, it goes on, and it's like a vicious cycle. You can see how it can sort of permeate in ways that are unintended but can easily happen depending on the setting.