Lee N. Newcomer, MD, of the UnitedHealth Group, gives his perspective on how to assess quality in the age of precision medicine.
Sandra L. Wong, MD, of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, summarizes three abstracts for which she was the discussant. The topics were rates of surgical site infections, an online resource for hospital cancer surgery volumes, and barriers to oncology appointments at comprehensive cancer centers. (Abstracts 171, 172, 55)
Joseph V. Simone, MD, of the Simone Consulting Company, reflects on the prospects for the future of safety and quality.
Robert Miller, MD, ASCO’S Vice President of Quality and Guidelines, discusses CancerLinQ, the “big data” technology platform, and implementation of a rapid learning system for oncology based on Institute of Medicine principles.
Dawn L. Hershman, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center, summarizes a joint ASCO/NCI session on this important topic, including the challenges and solutions.
Steven Shak, MD, of Genomic Health, discusses mortality among patients with early-stage hormone receptor–positive invasive breast cancer in the SEER database who were treated based on the 21-gene Recurrence Score results (Abstract 176).
