IVBM Chair Summarizes Key Takeaways on Value-Based Oncology Care

Joseph Alvarnas, MD, vice president of government affairs and professor of hematology at City of Hope, summarizes yesterday's Institute for Value-Based Medicine^® (IVBM) event, "Prioritizing the Patient in Value-Based Oncology Care," which he chaired. He also explains how attendees can translate what they learned into their everyday work.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Transcript

Could you summarize the key topics discussed at the IVBM? What was the overarching theme?

The achieving theme is really focused upon, how do we improve patient experience? How do we improve patient access? How do we take all of the technologies and new models of care that are entering into the scientific domain and make sure that they can touch the lives of people who are diagnosed with cancer today?

What we're trying to do here isn't to talk about CAR [chimeric antigen receptor] T-cells, transplants, or immunoncology as abstract topics. Instead, what we hope to do, and what we've done, is find ways in which these technologies can be deployed in easily navigable, easy to reach, easy to transcend ways that help patients who are facing cancer have better lives and better outcomes.

How can attendees apply the insights gained at the IVBM to their work?

I think the number one lesson is, again, centered on the early integration of supportive care medicine. I think this idea that palliative care only becomes relevant around the end of life is not only naive, but it's defeating for patients.

Early integration of supportive care medicine can help with the mitigation of toxicities, the identification of goals of care, and the understanding of patients' human and spiritual needs to better align with what in their hearts represents their desire for the best possible outcome; I think that's the number one lesson. Supportive care isn't something used for the end of life, it's for the whole continuum of care.

The second thing is that as, again, care becomes more technically complex, the idea that we should work toward greater and more robust partnerships between clinicians and academic centers and clinicians and the community, I think, is going to be essential when it comes to navigating our growing portfolio of clinical trials, increasingly complex and costly care technologies, and ways of understanding cancer, including genomics, that are hard to navigate. I think you could do a much better job, much more meaningful work, by doing so in partnership.