Interviews

Kristen Whelchel, PharmD, CSP, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, details what services medically integrated dispensing (MID) specialty pharmacies provide.

Pawel Sobczuk, MD, PhD, of the Maria Sklodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology in Warsaw, Poland, previews the upcoming ESMO Congress 2023 in Madrid, Spain.

Jeff McIntyre, MA, of the Global Liver Institute, discussed how the delayed diagnosis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) affects patients and how health care and managed care professionals can help expedite diagnosis and treatment.

Kimberly Westrich, MA, of Cencora, explains how US payers' views and uses of value assessment tools have evolved.

To ensure patients are getting timely access to their treatments, there needs to be better collaboration between payers and providers, said Christine Pfaff, RPh, senior regional director of operations, American Oncology Network.

Ben Urick, PharmD, PhD, of Prime Therapeutics, compares the value of medically integrated specialty pharmacies with that of mail order pharmacies.

Joseph Chervenak, MD, MBA, obstetrician and gynecologist, Montefiore Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Health, breaks down the benefits and challenges associated with implementing large language models such as ChatGPT into reproductive medicine and fertility care.

Kristine Slam, MD, FACP, Central Ohio Surgical Associates, addresses the importance of involving patients in decisions regarding their goals for treatment, emphasizing that this involvement is critical to uncover what they value, as well as their short- and long-term goals for treatment.

Peter A. Lio, MD, clinical assistant professor of dermatology and pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, gives a preview of his session on mild to moderate atopic dermatitis (AD) in skin of color.

Biosimilars are becoming more common as more launch on the market in the United States, but patient and provider education can help speed uptake of these products, explained Bincy Abraham, MD, Houston Methodist – Weill Cornell.

Alma Habib, MD, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, talks about the fact that disparities are able to be recognized in leukemia/lymphoma care, but the questions of how to address these disparities remain.

Older patients often face financial challenges on fixed incomes with different payer systems like Medicare, Sarah Wall, MD, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, says. Accessing treatment centers far away is difficult due to support system disruptions, leading to increased stress and financial strain.

David Adamson, MD, FRCSC, FACOG, FACS, reproductive endocrinologist, surgeon, founder and CEO of ARC Fertility, and past president of The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, discusses the importance of professional guidelines in reproductive medicine.

Positive results from STEP-HFpEF indicate that semaglutide can improve quality of life and functional capacity in patients with obesity-related heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), but large outcomes trials are needed to confirm this, said Javed Butler, MD, MPH, MBA.

Director Takiyah Durham, MBA, and Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, MD, share how the program is improving maternal and infant care in Pittsburgh, PA, at Highmark Health.

Fabric Health is transforming laundry time into an opportunity for community well-being, engaging families in laundromats to address health needs and connecting them with health care experts and needed social services. Adaptable and problem-solving oriented, the social-impact startup helps to bridge pandemic-exacerbated disparities by meeting people where they are, fostering health equity.

Jennifer Vaughn, MD, discusses how value-based care in hematology should consider cost and financial toxicity, as well as valuable patient experience.

Jennifer Mathieu, MA, senior vice president of professional and government affairs of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), described what is in store for attendees during next week's AMCP Nexus meeting.

Ruben A. Mesa, MD, FACP, president and executive director of Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute (LCI) and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses how practices can improve access and affordability to treatments for rare cancers, such as myeloproliferative neoplasms.

Jay Lee, MD, talks about financial toxicity in terms of the individual patient and in terms of the health system itself, especially in terms of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) recurrence.

Andrew Ho, MD, talks about the importance of searching for what can be modified, such as closer transition to skilled nursing facilities, when working with patients who had pulmonary embolism (PE) and experienced readmission who had nonmodifiable factors and comorbidities.

Aparna Balasubramanian, MD, discusses the importance of measurements such as heart rate variability, but also that there’s no such thing as just 1 biomarker that will give all information for high-risk patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Steven Deitelzweig, MD, system chairman of hospital medicine at Ochsner Clinical School, professor of medicine at the University of Queensland, discusses key findings from a recent study on the accuracy of atrial fibrillation detection devices.

Lower-sodium oxybate (LXB) and sodium oxybate (SXB) were proven equally effective for cataplexy and excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), despite LXB having 92% less sodium.

Sarah Wall, MD, talks about how it’s important to consider patient age when treating older patients with cancer because it will impact so many of them and blood cancers act differently and can be more aggressive in older adults.

A close, updated review of data used to determine how to improve lung cancer screening rates and see who is most at risk of pulmonary complications is necessary to make progress in this area, notes Ajay Sheshadri, MD, MSCI.

Jeffrey Velotta, MD, FACS, attendee and presenter of CHEST Annual Meeting 2023, talks about the phenomenon of an increase in female, Asian, nonsmokers developing lung cancer, and what is being done to address this rise.

Aparna Balasubramanian, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and attendee of the CHEST Annual Meeting 2023, talks about the necessity of challenging measurements like race-specific equations that can create harmful assumptions.

Rajini Katipamula-Malisetti, MD, executive vice president at Minnesota Oncology, discussed what her practice is doing to continue improving patient care.

Mike Koroscik, MBA, MHA, vice president of oncology, Allina Health and the Allina Health Cancer Institute, discusses the successes and challenges of a population health reimbursement model and gives advice for other health organizations considering a similar partnership within their practices.