Interviews

Dennis P. Scanlon, PhD, professor of health policy and administration at Pennsylvania State University and editor-in-chief of The American Journal of Accountable Care®, talks about major systemic and fundamental barriers to health systems becoming learning health systems.

Marc-Andre Cornier, MD, professor and director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina, explains recent research on a behavioral weight loss intervention.

The acceleration of science and medicine is exciting, but these new advances are not always moving into practice, said Jorge Plutzky, MD, director of the Vascular Disease Prevention Program and director of Preventive Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Patients who cardiologists see once every few months are getting handed over to pharmacists who can monitor them more frequently and get them to their goals, said Crystal Zhou, PharmD, assistant professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, discusses efforts to improve racial and ethnic disparities in US chronic disease rates.

Patients often have comorbidities that make it important to consider them holistically and not bucket them into one disease state, and the findings on rivaroxaban show broad benefits and a favorable risk-benefit profile, said Marc Bonaca, MD, MPH, of CPC Clinical Research and CPC Community Health and the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Many of the accountable care organization (ACO) models are being tested to find changes to make to the Medicare Shared Savings Program, but there is a general problem with short-lived models ending and being replaced by new ones, said Michael Chernew, PhD.

Treating children with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) early can help reduce progression of atherosclerosis without adverse events related to growth and development, said Raul Santos, MD, PhD, director, Lipid Clinic at the Heart Institute, and associate professor, University of São Paulo Medical School, Brazil.

Even as virtual care has dropped from the peaks at the beginning of the pandemic, some aspects of it will not go away in cardiology care, said Dipti Itchhaporia, MD, FACC, the 70th president of the American College of Cardiology.

Melissa Johnson, MD, program director of Lung Cancer Research at Sarah Cannon, discusses the need for increased lung cancer screening among patients who have no tobacco use history.

Certain types of ophthalmic care were more successful with video visits based on what was required to treat patients, said Darren Chen, MD student at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences.

Debra Patt, MD, PhD, MBA, executive vice president of Texas Oncology, explains recommendations for annual mammography screenings after COVID-19 vaccination and why guidelines differ for diagnostic visits.

There is some confusion about the differences between the European and American guidelines on lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, but it’s clear that lower is better, said Pam Taub, MD, FACC, professor of medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Ryan Haumschild, PharmD, MS, MBA, director of pharmacy services at Emory Healthcare and Winship Cancer Institute, explains how payers can play an essential role in improving biosimilar adoption.

William Schaffner, MD, medical director at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID), and Patsy Stinchfield, RN, MS, CPNP, president-elect of NFID, discuss health care disparities related to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as solutions to close these gaps.

A child’s schooling is affected by the impact of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), explained Colette Romero, whose son has the disease.

Camille Hertzka, vice president, head of oncology, US Medical, AstraZeneca, discusses why so much excitement has been generated for the use of olaparib (Lynparza) in the first line for patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer.

Zahra Mahmoudjafari, PharmD, BCOP, clinical pharmacy manager at the University of Kansas Health System, gives her take on what payers should keep in mind when dealing with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies.

Pipeline forecasting can provide payers better insight into which expensive specialty drugs coming down the pipeline they should be keeping their eyes on, according to Katie Lockhart, MA, manager at Magellan Health.

Chelsee Jensen, PharmD, pharmaceutical formulary manager at Mayo Clinic, explains how the process of implementing biosimilars may differ depending on practice size.

Soumya Vishwanath, PharmD, senior manager of formulary strategy at Magellan Rx Management, highlighted the therapeutic gaps that need to be addressed to ensure that patients with behavioral health disorders are well cared for.

Orly Vardeny, PharmD, MS, core investigator, Center for Care Delivery and Outcomes Research, and associate professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School, discusses key barriers to access of novel therapies and what sessions she’s looking forward to during the American College of Cardiology's (ACC) 71st Annual Scientific Session.

Jeffrey Casberg, vice president of pharmacy at IPD Analytics, discussed some of the regulatory and legal hurdles that generic and biosimilar companies have to face on the road to market launch.

Everything from the genomic data for the cancer to the zip code of a patient matters when delivery care, said Edmondo Robinson, MD, MBA, MS, FACP, senior vice president and chief digital officer at Moffitt Cancer Center.

Michael Ciarametaro, MBA, vice president of research at the National Pharmaceutical Council, discusses the balance between lowering drug prices and encouraging innovation in new drug classes for serious diseases.

Traditional cardiovascular (CV) risk prediction models may not apply accurately to patients with HIV who may develop the cardiovascular disease younger than usual, said Jorge Plutzky, MD, director of the Vascular Disease Prevention Program and director of Preventive Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The accountable care organizations (ACOs) participating in the new ACO REACH model will have a health equity benchmark adjustment and need to collect more data to help better understand the populations being cared for and serve those from underserved communities, said Michael Chernew, PhD.

Jonathan Kentley, MBBS, MSc, research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, explains ways artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in dermatology, including smartphone applications, at the 2022 American Academy of Dermatology Annual Meeting.

Bernice Kwong, MD, clinical professor of dermatology, Stanford University, expands on her session about graft-versus-host disease diagnosis and management presented at the 2022 American Academy of Dermatology Annual Meeting, emphasizing the importance of the relationship between patients and doctors.

It’s important that patients understand the likely outcomes, problems that can occur along the way, and the risks of a treatment or procedure, explained Robert G. Fante, MD, FACS, president of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery and facial plastic surgeon and cosmetic surgeon, Fante Eye & Face Centre in Denver, Colorado.