Dr Robert Daly Explains the Importance of Updating Pathways With New Data

As new breakthrough therapies are approved, clinical pathways have to be kept updated in order for patients to get the best treatments, said Robert Daly, MD, MBA, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Transcript

How does the latest evidence get introduced into pathways in a way that is seamless and not disruptive to the clinicians providing care?

I think that there are, at this time in oncology, so many breakthroughs as far as new drugs being approved, that really can have a significant impact on a patient’s course of care. And, so, I think for pathway vendors, so vendors that are not home grown, so they weren’t developed by the institution, but they’re an outside vendor, I think the responsibility really is on them to have frequent meetings where those pathways are addressed, have the ability to have ad hoc sessions where pathways are modified based on breakthroughs in the data or based on these clinical conferences, and I think they have to be very transparent about who’s on these committees so that patients and other physicians really understand who is making the decisions about these pathways and that there’s expert input. Because we really rely on those experts to help sort through and sift these data and make decisions about what are the best treatments for patients and where they should be on the pathway.