Latest Conference Articles

Sean C. Dowdy, MD, chair, division of gynecologic surgery, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Mayo Clinic, discusses identified factors that cause prolonged delays between discovering an improved treatment or practice and the application of it.

Funding is the biggest challenge scientists and clinical investigators face when trying to find successful therapies to treat advanced bladder cancer, explained Donna Hansel, MD, PhD, of University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine.

Addressing health disparities and social determinants of health can be daunting, but there has been a lot of progress, said Shantanu Agrawal, MD, MPhil, CEO and president of National Quality Forum.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-enabled devices are already making their way into the market and should be able to help make meaning of data in order to improve care delivery, said speakers at the 15th Annual World Health Care Congress.

Practices increasingly need to use technology to deliver care in an increasingly value-based world, said Charles Saunders, MD, CEO of Integra Connect.

Vivor helps patients receive financial assistance by focusing on empowering the providers and making it easier for financial navigators to do their job, said Ian Manners, founder and CEO of Vivor.

Charitable organizations are seeing more and more patients who need financial assistance, said Dan Klein, President and CEO, Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation.

Tom Price, MD, former HHS secretary, identifies key principles to keep in mind as the political parties move forward with any health policy changes.

Social determinants of health are being carefully tended to in the Medicare populations, explained Lee Newcomer, MD, MHA, private consultant.

Communication is critical in providing integrated, comprehensive care, said Mark Soberman, MD, MBA, FACS, former president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC).

At the 15th Annual World Health Care Congress, CMS Administrator Seema Verma highlighted new policies and initiatives from CMS to ensure that programs are delivering high-quality care in a sustainable way as healthcare spending continues to grow at a faster rate than the overall US economy.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell treatments are still new enough that there are still unknown regarding long-term side effects, which is something patients need to understand before they undergo treatment, said Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

A shift in care delivery and the availability of data are helping to make value-based care a reality in the United States, but the change has been taking too long, said panelists at the 15th Annual World Health Care Congress.

We’ve done a lot of work on quality improvement, such as enhancing recovery, reducing intestinal injury during and after surgery, and reducing infections after surgery, explained William Cliby, MD, consultant, division of gynecologic surgery, department of obstetrics & gynecology, Mayo Clinic.

If more time was spent on things that make life more high quality, less time would be spent on worrying about healthcare, said Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and founding chair of the Department of Health Policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University.

More attention needs to be brought to palliative care practices in ovarian cancer after a woman relapses, said John Schorge, MD, associate editor of The Green Journal, and Gynecologic Oncologist at Tufts Medical Center.

Enhanced recovery pathways are important because they allow the human body to be as normal physiologically as it can be while undergoing the stress of surgery, explained Jamie Bakkum-Gamez, MD, associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and gynecologic oncologist at Mayo Clinic.

Clinicians in the audience attending the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said patients and payers may only see the headlines about the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) ratings and don't pay attention to finer points about recommendations for subgroups.

Curtis Lowery, MD, chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and director of the Center for Distance Health, discusses how technology will impact the future of healthcare.

Former Ambassador Nancy Brinker, founder of Susan G. Komen, talks about the stigma that used to surround breast cancer and how she brought awareness to the disease.

New therapies and imaging modalities have helped providers treat patients who have prostate cancer earlier, said Joe O'Sullivan, MD, FRCR, clinical professor, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast.

The drug's sponsor filed for FDA approval earlier this week under breakthrough therapy status.

Women face many barriers to treatment for postpartum depression, but obstetricians are well-positioned to help overcome them.

Michele McCourt, senior director of the CancerCare Co-Payment Assistance Foundation, recognizes the financial hardships of cancer patients when paying for medications.

Mary Norine Walsh, MD, immediate past president of the American College of Cardiology, discusses the importance of women being their own advocate when receiving postpartum care.

The CDC designed a tool to help identify a facility's level of maternal and neonatal care. Rear Admiral Wanda Barfield, MD, MPH, director of the Division of Reproductive Health for the CDC, discusses how it works to assess risk-appropriate care.

One study revealed that 40% of residents in the South report financial barriers that prevent them from giving patients long-acting reversible contraception, including lack of insurance coverage and the cost of the device, which prevents it from being stocked.

The president's panel at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' 2018 Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting in Austin, Texas, discussed how to make postpartum care more value-based as women give birth at older ages and need team-based care.

Mark Soberman, MD, MBA, FACS, explains why he chose to focus on creating the next generation multidisciplinary team in cancer care during his 1-year tenure as president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC).

I think the hardest thing about advanced and recurrent endometrial cancer is that the outcomes are still fairly poor, explained Victoria Bae-Jump, MD, PhD, associate professor, gynecologic oncology, University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.