Dr Ryan Huey: Expansion of Patient Support, Care Key to Improve Value-Based Oncology

Patient services across various perspectives such as direct patient care and patient support are areas that health systems can expand upon to improve value-based oncology care, said Ryan Huey, MD gastrointestinal medical oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Transcript

What actions can health systems take to improve value-based oncology care within their organizations?

I think from a direct patient care perspective, there's a role to think about the expanded use of telemedicine and also potentially, chemotherapy even at home, or certainly closer to where a patient lives as opposed to in a traditional infusion suite or a hospital. From a support services perspective, there's a role to expand a lot of services. Some of these were described in the Oncology Care Model such as social work or nutritional support or navigation, physical therapy, palliative care; these are things that are not traditionally reimbursed in a fee-for-service environment, however, can lead to improved outcomes for patients or reduced costs throughout the patient journey. So, this is an excellent way to also think about expanding the use of value-based care in the oncology space