February 2025 Health Equity News

Song Park, MD, on Equitable Access Intertwined With User-Friendly Tech

Song Park, MD | Image: University of Washington

At a recent Institute for Value-Based Medicine event in Seattle, Washington, Song Park, MD, assistant professor, Department of Dermatology, University of Washington Medicine, offered the dermatologist’s perspective during a panel discussion titled “Best Practices in Skin Cancer Treatment: Navigating the Patient Journey.” Experts discussed the intricacies of patient journeys following a skin cancer diagnosis, as well as current best practices in the field. Here, Park provides Evidence-Based Oncology (EBO) with insights into how clinicians can be the best support system for their patients and the influence of value-based care on the accessibility of treatments.

This transcript has been lightly edited.

EBO: In value-based care models, how can health care providers best provide emotional and psychological support for patients with skin cancer while optimizing outcomes and resource allocation?

PARK: I believe that it is most important to provide very clear and concise information when they get the diagnosis: What’s the prognosis, what [are] the treatment options, and what really is expected for the patients? Make it clear that we are available to answer any questions, and then provide the right resources and be there for them. As a doctor or provider, that’s the best thing we could do for a patient. And as an institute, we have a lot of support systems [such as] social workers or nursing support to help.

EBO: What role does value-based care play in addressing barriers to accessing timely and effective skin cancer treatment, and how can it help reduce disparities in care delivery?

PARK: Good question. As a dermatologist, there are 2 parts that we can really help with: Getting the diagnosis early enough when someone finds suspicious lesions, and then getting into the right treatment or right treatment team when they get the diagnosis.

[For] the first part…[streamline] those referral pathways and actively [use] teledermatology—in some institutes, it’s called e-consult, [which uses] high-resolution photos to be reviewed by a dermatologist or specialist so they can best try and see [whether] it is concerning, [whether the] patient needs to be seen on [the] earlier side, or [whether] this is something that we cannot watch. If one has that system…in their practice model, that really helps people with some concerning skin lesions…to get the diagnosis early or be reassured.

The second part, once one gets the diagnosis, especially if it is aggressive or a more severe diagnosis or stage, getting them connected with the multidisciplinary team with the right specialties really helps with moving that care fast enough and getting the right amount of care.

EBO: Are there any challenges to ensuring these innovations remain accessible for different patient populations?

PARK: In the general population, particularly for rare cancers or those areas that are evolving fast, it’s hard [for anyone] to stay updated. So, increasing the awareness of what’s new [in technology] and how others are using and sharing that as a professional society would help. As for patient barriers…these days, apart from access, there [are] also technology considerations. It’s not like rocket science technology, but our [older] patients are less familiar with using those [information technology] devices, computers, or even taking a photo of their lesion and uploading. They sometimes need help from other people, so making those easier to access and easier to use may help with patient care.

Leveraging AI and Community Health Workers to Boost Trial Access

Kasey Bond, MPH | Image: Perlmutter Cancer Center

At a recent gathering of the Institute for Value-Based Medicine presented by NYU Langone Health and The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), the evening’s theme was “Enhancing Community Cancer Programs With Academic Excellence Through Strategic Partnerships.” Panelist Kasey Bond, MPH, executive director of administration at Perlmutter Cancer Center in New York, New York, discussed how the contributions of community health workers increase clinical trial access and how technology can help to facilitate the process. Bond oversees Perlmutter’s strategic planning and the operations across the NYU Langone Health network, which includes Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island.

This transcript has been lightly edited.

AJMC: How can technology and community health workers be leveraged through collaboration to expand clinical trial access?

Bond: It fits into 2 parts for me. One, the community health workers in general are an extremely important part [of] expanding access [to] clinical trials. Clinical trials in certain communities have a certain stigma associated with them, and some patients are extremely nervous about participating or might not even know to ask about a clinical trial as an option. Educating our community health workers to explain to patients what a clinical trial means [and] how it might benefit them is so valuable.

Often, the clinical trial is the best possible available treatment course for this patient, and we want to make sure that they have a space to ask questions without the fear of somebody judging them. We work in the industry, and sometimes you feel embarrassed to ask a question in front of a physician. You don’t want them to think you don’t know what you’re talking about. So, the community health worker is an extremely valuable resource in making patients feel comfortable to ask about their treatment options.

When you couple that incredible workforce with technology—AI [artificial intelligence] screening is a great example that we talked about at the event—that can help us to be able to identify patients in advance who might be appropriate for a particular trial. That screening process is extremely cumbersome when done manually, and AI seems like a promising solution to be able to identify patients earlier and easier.

Then when we can connect our community health workers with those patients who are likely eligible, it brings together a higher success rate in identifying patients who are appropriate for trials and could really benefit from them.

It’s important for people to hear it from a member of their own community. It’s easy to believe that a physician, nurse, or anybody at a hospital or practice might have a vested interest in why they want you to participate in a study, so I think the community health worker, in this way, really serves as a trusted third party. There’s no vested interest for them; their only intention is to provide the patient with the most meaningful and useful information for their specific case.

I also think there’s fear in a lot of communities about the fact that there is so little minority representation in many clinical trial accruals that…there’s some concern that those trials weren’t conducted in populations that look like theirs. This is the highlight of why it’s so important for us to offer clinical trials in a wide variety of communities, but it also is contributing to that distrust that we were talking about, [and] rightfully so.

Having somebody who understands the nuance [and concerns] of that culture…is a beneficial way to make patients feel more educated and empowered to make their own decisions.