Articles

Hollywood, FL—Seismic shifts in the oncology landscape have led to pricing and policy changes that affect the delivery of quality care in oncology, said Michael N. Dubroff, DO, FACOP, Senior Director, Payer Support for Genentech, who lent his perspective at the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.

The following quotes were assembled from interviews and news coverage by FierceHealthFinance, revealing healthcare decision makers’ value-based perspectives on some of the main problems currently facing providers and the US healthcare system.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill for fiscal year 2014 that provides $30.9 billion to the National Institutes of Health, of which one sixth—$5.1 billion—is designated for the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

A group of scientists led by Tak Mak, MD, Director of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Dennis Slamon, MD, PhD, Director of Clinical/Translational Research, University of California, Los Angeles, and supported by funding from donor grants only, has filed a New Drug Application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a drug developed based on the target enzyme PLK4, which plays a crucial role in cancer-cell division.

The completion of the Breast Cancer Treatment Plan and Summary Standard and Implementation Guide, the first phase in a set of interoperability standards, was announced at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Hospital readmissions for chronic diseases, including cancer, are associated with a significant and often preventable financial burden in the United States.

Just this month, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report titled “Delivering High-Quality Can­cer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis.”¹ This consensus report convened a committee of experts to examine the quality of cancer care in the United States and formulate recommendations for its improvement.

The AVBCC Annual Meeting experiences exponential growth in attendance and participation as oncologists, payers, employers, managed care executives, patient advocates, and drug manufacturers convened in Hollywood, FL, on May 2-5, 2013, for the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC).

Hollywood, FL—The goal of balancing cost and quality leaves no stakeholder without a challenge, said Grant D. Lawless, MD, RPh, Director, Healthcare Decision Analysis Program, and Associate Professor of Clinical Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

An aromatase inhibitor has joined tamoxifen (Nolvadex) and the selective estrogen receptor (ER) modulator raloxifene hydrochloride (Evista) as chemoprevention for women who are at an increased risk for breast cancer, according to the recent update of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) practice guideline (Visvanathan K, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2013;31:2942-2962)