Divya Gupta, MD, of the Stanford Cancer Center, discusses an intervention utilizing a computer model and lay care coaches to improve advance care planning conversations with patients who have metastatic cancer. The study, Dr. Gupta reports, showed a trend toward less intensive care for patients at the end of life.
Tina Shih, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the rising cost-sharing requirement from private insurance, which has worsened the financial burden for patients with cancer. She believes that cost-containment policies alone may not be enough to ease this hardship.
Divya A. Parikh, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, discusses findings that suggest an evidence-based tool, the Serious Illness Conversation Guide, may engage patients with metastatic or recurrent urologic cancer in goals-of-care conversations, potentially resulting in an increase of documentation of their goals in the electronic medical record.
Sarah S. Mougalian, MD, of Yale Cancer Center, discusses the increasingly common problem of long wait times for access to oncology care. Her team developed a next-day access program in several of Yale’s oncology services, which was well received by patients and decreased the time to first visit.
Katherine E. Reeder-Hayes, MD, MBA, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses the timeliness of breast cancer care for Black women compared with non-Black women in North Carolina. Her data showed that greater geographic variation exists in the timeliness of breast cancer care for Black women, with regions surrounding larger urban centers having the largest disparities.
Morgan R.L. Lichtenstein, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center, discusses a single-center prospective study examining the complex relationship between time to oral oncolytic receipt and clinical or process-related factors, such as prior authorization, diagnosis, and insurance type.
