Five Ways Oncology Has Become More Personalized

“A core component of the OCM [Oncology Care Model] is the Monthly Enhanced Oncology Services payment made by CMS to oncology practices for each individual cancer patient the system manages. This payment is meant to help fund updates to electronic health records and facilitate patient-provider interactions focused on shared decision making. Even though the OCM is broad, the target is improving individual patient care and data collection. With the right data and the right incentives, models like OCM will have providers and systems looking at cancer patients more individually than ever before, with less concern about the volume or reimbursement of different drugs.”

-Jeremy Schafer PharmD, MBA, SVP, director, Access Experience Team at Precision for Value

“Physicians are now able to use a patient’s unique profile to come up with more personalized and effective therapies-mono or combination therapies that have a higher chance of success and effectiveness in stopping or even eliminating the cancer. Companion and complementary biomarker testing are increasingly helping identify which treatments are likely be the most effective for specific types of tumors. Emerging therapies on their own or in combination with other cancer treatments are being used to then target the susceptible cancer cells with minimal damage to surrounding healthy cells.”

-Elizabeth Oyekan PharmD, FCSHP, CPHQ, senior director, Access Experience Team at Precision for Value

“Current treatments have taken a more targeted approach to clinical innovation, but have in some ways converted what could have been a death sentence into a financial life sentence. And while that may be personalized clinical treatment, it’s not personalized human care. As treatments become more scientifically personalized … the next evolution in personalization will be to better our approaches to treating unique human beings-people with not just unique genetics that affect how they respond to drug therapies, but with unique family and social situations, financial considerations, employment statuses and other variables that have very real roles in treatment choices and efficacy.”

-Andrew Hertler, MD, chief medical officer, New Century Health

“We know more about the different types of cancers than ever before and now have advanced diagnostics and therapies that can more precisely target different diseases.  And as treatments become more personalized, oncologists are becoming more specialized requiring deeper dives into the science. There is so much knowledge-about the diseases and how to treat them-it’s frankly too much information for any one person. That’s why working with like-minded physicians is increasingly important. The ability for physicians to share clinical information in the age of precision oncology is an important reason why we can deliver more patient-centered-and personalized-care than ever before.”

-Jeff Patton, MD, president of physician services, OneOncology and CEO of Tennessee Oncology

“Traditional treatment pathways for cancer have often utilized a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach across broad patient populations based on tumor type. However, evolving clinical research is continuing to elevate the understanding of individual tumor heterogeneity and variations in patient response to treatment. If the right targeted treatment is available, this can translate to better response rates and/or a more tolerable side effect profile for the patient. As more individualized cancer treatments demonstrate improved patient outcomes or tolerability through personalization of cancer treatment, treatment pathways and guidelines will continue to shift away from the current ‘one size’ standard of care.”

-Erin Lopata, PharmD, MPH, senior director, Access Experience Team at Precision for Value