MID Models Reduce Adverse Events, Lower Costs in Oncology: Kenneth Komorny, PharmD, BCPS

In this clip, Kenneth Komorny, PharmD, BCPS, of Moffitt Cancer Center, explains what sets medically integrated dispensing (MID) apart from non-MID models and highlights how it benefits patients, physicians, and pharmacists across the oncology care continuum.

MID was a featured topic at the Institute for Value-Based Medicine® event hosted by The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC) in Tampa, Florida, last month, where Komorny moderated the discussion, “Pharmacy at the Helm: Medically Integrated Dispensing in Oncology.”

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

Transcript

For context, how do you define medically integrated dispensing, or MID? What differentiates MID models from non-MID models, particularly in oncology care?

As defined by NCODA [the Network for Collaborative Oncology Development and Advancement], a medically integrated pharmacy is a dispensing pharmacy that's located at the Cancer Center of Excellence that involves collaboration with different team members and patient engagement.

From your perspective, how does MID benefit patients, physicians, and pharmacists across the oncology care continuum?

The data are rich and demonstrate the benefits of a medically integrated dispensing pharmacy compared to a non-medically integrated dispensing pharmacy. Those include patient abandonment, patient adherence, process metrics like time to fill, patient satisfaction, and cost avoidance. Those are some of the big benefits that you see with those types of pharmacies. Again, the literature is filled with examples of that. Last month, we actually wrote a review article in AJMC that highlights medically integrated pharmacies and the benefits.

Furthermore, Moffitt Cancer Center was able to collect data this past year and presented that data at a national conference in Las Vegas last month. It was a patient population of metastatic prostate cancer patients, and it looked at filling the prescriptions at our medically integrated pharmacy compared to a non-affiliated pharmacy, such as a PBM [pharmacy benefit manager] specialty pharmacy, or a pharmacy such as Onco360 or Biologics.

What our data showed was a two-fold reduction in prostate-specific antigen and half the rate of serious adverse events. That translated into 0 hospitalizations in our group vs 6 in the control group. Those were primarily driven by the progression of disease and blood pressure complications, which are known to be a part of the androgen receptor blockers.

That translated into an $83,000 cost avoidance with our patients compared to the control group. So, again, even data from Moffitt Cancer Center proves the benefit of medically integrated dispensing pharmacies.