Dr Gary Owens Discusses Patient-Centered Care in PAH

Managing pulmonary arterial hypertension really takes a health care team, said Gary Owens, MD, president of Gary Owens Associates.

Transcript

How important is shared decision making and patient-centered care in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)?

You know, I think it really probably is one of the most important things that one can bring, because you really do need to bring the patient into the decision of exactly what their goals are. How, I won't say how aggressive, but how symptomatic they are. And how much treatment, they're willing to tolerate. The combinations of 3—and sometimes even 4—drugs can be pretty complex and costly, and patients need to understand that impact. So I think it comes into play.

I think what also comes into play, when you talk about shared [decision making] is kind of sharing that understanding that managing pulmonary arterial hypertension really takes a health care team. You know, the primary care provider still needs to play a role to help coordinate and be a medical home, obviously, the pulmonologist or, in this case, the pulmonologist at an advanced care setting that deals with pulmonary arterial hypertension, needs to be involved, and maybe cardiology involved. And these patients sometimes have other comorbidities.

So it really points out, you know, shared decision making on the patient's part. But the other side of that coin is shared responsibility on the part of providers and then payers basically need to look at their formularies, make sure those formularies keep up with guidelines, and make sure that they're staying on top of the latest data and treatment approaches as the guidelines change fairly quickly these days.