Erich Mounce Discusses How Technology Needs to Evolve to Help Oncologists Deliver Care

Oncology needs to learn to use technology not just for keeping medical records, but also for caring for patients, explained Erich Mounce, chief operating officer, OneOncology.

Transcript

As technology continues to play a larger role in delivering care, what are some ways that it’s helped community oncologists?

Technology to me is pivotal in a lot of industries moving forward. A lot of industries outside of medical care are light years ahead of us. Where medical oncology has got to go, it’s got to learn to use technology not just for keeping medical records, like an EHR [electronic health record], it’s got to use technology on how to care for patients. It’s got to use technology on how to retain workforce. It’s got to use technology on how to use the data to make the care model better.

So, for an example, in my 9 or 10 years with oncology experience, hundreds of new drugs have come out just for breast cancer. How can a single physician really link in to all of the pros and cons and symptom management responding to those drugs, So, you have to tie technology into that. You just have to in order to make it work. Workforce management technology create acuity staffing models, so you’ve got to use artificial intelligence to try and plan for how often someone’s going to be in a chemo suite, how often someone’s going to need a CT [computerized tomography] scan. All of those things are new forms of technology. And then finally, interfacing with a customer, a patient. You and I are patients within an oncology world or within a medical world. We are trying to interface a lot differently than knocking on the front door, filling out all of the same forms again, and seeing our doctor and getting a prescription. That interface of the interaction is going to change dramatically over the next decade.