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)
Sarina Isenberg, PhD Candidate, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, discusses the cost savings of a comprehensive hospital-based palliative care program. (Abstract 2)
Allison Kurian, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, discusses pressing questions about the clinical utility and value of extended genomic testing and other forms of precision medicine.
Joseph V. Simone, MD, of the Simone Consulting Company, reflects on the prospects for the future of safety and quality.
Kerin B. Adelson, MD, of the Yale Cancer Center, discusses an electronic decision support tool to capture staging data. This information allows automated reports for clinical trial screening, outcomes analysis, quality comparisons, and reporting. (Abstract 151)
Lawrence N. Shulman, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses his paper, which explores lessons learned from analyses of the National Cancer Data Base. (Abstract 173)
