April 2016

Coverage of sessions held at Cancerscape, the Association of Community Cancer Center’s 42nd annual meeting on policy, value, and quality, held March 2-4, 2016, in Washington, DC.

While clinical pathways can help standardize care, considering the multitude of options available for oncology care providers, there is significant push-back from providers as well.

Evidence-Based Oncology invited a panel of experts who are experienced in the creation of oncology care pathways, use them in their practice, and have researched the development and implementation of care pathways, to exchange ideas on the topic.

Despite the fundamental advances in cancer care technology and care delivery that have made these improvements possible, our delivery system remains quite inefficient and frequently falls short of being truly patient-centered. Is a system-based solution the answer?

An overview of the oncology clinical pathways development program at the UPMC CancerCenter and how it led to the creation of Via Oncology, a clinical pathways vendor.

Cancer pathways can potentially improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. Recent concerns about pathway adoption deserve attention, including excessive administrative burden to clinics.

We offer recommendations for the development and design of clinical pathways in an effort to establish a set of normative criteria that creates trust and transparency.

Clinical pathways have been emphasized as a means to deliver efficient, quality care and to ensure better outcomes at lower costs. The Oncology Medical Home takes this to the next, more comprehensive, step of quantifying and improving quality and value in cancer care while lowering overall costs.

Members of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) have articulated concerns regarding the current proliferation of clinical pathways in oncology that could affect patient access and care quality. In response, ASCO established an ad hoc Task Force, which issued a policy statement to guide the future development and implementation of these treatment management tools.