AMCP's CEO Susan Cantrell Previews the Upcoming Conference

Artificial intelligence (AI) in managed care pharmacy, real-world evidence (RWE) studies on payer and provider disconnect, and 340B and legislative updates will be key topics presented at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Annual Meeting, says Susan Cantrell, CEO of AMCP.

This interview was lightly edited; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

Can you highlight some of the key sessions that will be taking place at AMCP?

We're really excited about our upcoming annual meeting, and it will take place beginning on March 31, in Houston. Some of the sessions that we have coming up are really different this time, I would say. I'm most excited about the ones related to artificial intelligence, because there's so much happening in that world that [it] seems like it changes from day to day, week to week. We have a half-day program where we're going to do a deep dive into artificial intelligence in health care and, specifically, what opportunities does it create in the world of managed care pharmacy. We know there are many, and one of the things that we want to surface in this dialog is some of the use cases for how AI can help our members do the work better and service the patients that they serve better and more efficiently.

Some of the other things that we have coming up are that we are in engaged in a multifaceted initiative right now to look at opportunities presented by real-world evidence in health care decision-making. We know there's a disconnect between industry and how RWE studies are conducted and delivered to payers, a disconnect with what payers are really looking for. We're looking to bridge that gap, and we started the work last year. It's being led by our AMCP Research Institute, so we have a session on that as well and really are excited about what will come out of that initiative, including some standards where we can all agree on what payers need and what industry can deliver.

Other things that we're focusing on, we have a session on 340B, and that's certainly a hot topic across the health care spectrum right now. We have our legislative and regulatory update, which is always really, really popular. We do quite a bit on pipeline here so that our members know what's coming down the pipeline and likely to be approved by the FDA in the near future so that they can begin planning for it. We also have value-based contracting payment models, including pharmacy payment models. So, just lots of different topics in addition to touching on some really important clinical topics, including in the rare disease space.