MHE November 2020

Results of APOLLO and REACH3 trials are scheduled for presentation at the American Society of Hematology meeting next month are expected to garner attention.

Public health policies and treatment advances have made a difference.

The second of a two-part story on 10 takeaways about the telehealth boom. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a bumpy ride in the U.S., featuring one controversy after another. One of the few areas of agreement is that the widespread adoption of telehealth amid the pandemic has been, by and large, a positive development.

Applying lessons from behavioral economics, health systems are using “nudges” to influence the choices clinicians make.

The first of a two-part story on 10 takeaways about the telehealth boom. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a bumpy ride in the U.S., featuring one controversy after another. One of the few areas of agreement is that the widespread adoption of telehealth amid the pandemic has been, by and large, a positive development.

There’s some skepticism as programs to address social determinants of health proliferate. Some data are being collected.

Therapies that target lung cancer at the molecular level are proliferating — and so are the biomarkers for guiding their use.

In the early going, patients seeking the expensive, customized cancer treatments called CAR-T cell therapy had to go to an academic medical center. But that’s changing, as Duncan Allen, M.H.A., of the community cancer network OneOncology explains.

Health plans build strategies to ensure their beneficiaries have easy access to and receive vital immunizations.

Two newly approved antibody-drug conjugates and changes in radiation therapy lead the way.

There is growing recognition among healthcare providers and payers that disease prevalence is inextricably tied to social and environmental factors that impact health. In fact, clinical care accounts for an estimated 20% of health outcomes, while 80% are the result of social determinants of health (SDOH).

The Trump administration’s push to get more Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs to take on downside risk is having an effect, but there are still many nontakers.

The United States usually doesn’t fare very well in international health comparisons. The country’s healthcare ranks among, if not the, most expensive. The outcomes, as measured by metrics such as life expectancy at birth, are not top tier, especially when the U.S. is compared to well-off countries in Europe and Asia.

Entresto (sacubitril-valsartan) didn’t get a lot of love from payers after it was approved in 2015 because of its expense and the crowded armamentarium for heart failure. But Entresto has since made its way into guidelines for reduced ejection fraction heart failure, sometimes called systolic heart failure.