Dr Amy Laughlin on the Benefits of At-Home Cancer Care

Amy Laughlin, MD, MSHP, of Orlando Health, detailed the benefits of at-home cancer care, which she is presenting on at The American Journal of Managed Care®’s Institute for Value-Based Medicine® event being held today, November 2, in New York City. She also explained what she hopes attendees take away from her presentation, as well as what she hopes to learn from the other presenters.

At Orlando Health Cancer Institute, Laughlin specializes in breast cancer, cancer genetics, and high-risk care. To assist families in making informed health care decisions, she helps them to understand genetic testing benefits and the potential risks of hereditary cancer.

Transcript

What do you hope attendees take away from your presentation on at-home cancer care?

I hope that they take away a broader thinking about how we treat our patients. We traditionally think of hospital inpatient, outpatient in clinic, and those lines are already blurring on that continuum of care. Home is an equally important side of care and a place that probably most care happens, so just to broaden the thought of how we can actually deliver care to the right person at the right time as we face further resource constraints and a growing population that's faced with cancer.

What are the benefits of at-home cancer care?

So, the advantage of having treatment at home is that there is data saying that if you receive your care closer to home, you have better outcomes. Also, if you've received specialized care, you have better outcomes, but how do you make those things happen? How do you actually bring that specialty care to the patient, and how do you get even closer than the home itself?

At-home cancer care has been studied in an international group. I'd say that the United States is still very new in its experience with at-home cancer care, but, in those studies, there's less of a delay in treatment, there's better prognosis, better quality of life. As we learn more about time toxicity for people with cancer, this is another place that we can improve.

What do you hope to learn at the IVBM from other presenters?

I'm really looking forward to sharing and learning from their lessons, as well. I started off doing this work at the University of Pennsylvania, and I since have gone to Orlando Health Cancer Institute. I've noticed a big difference in staffing, in payer mix, in home health care licensure, so I'm curious to learn how other institutions are tackling these battles and whether they've noticed that same difference across the United States.