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PCOC SPOTLIGHT: Empowering Stakeholders Across the Breadth of Oncology
Joseph Alvarnas, MD, a co-chair of Patient-Centered Oncology Care® (PCOC), discussed the unique nature of PCOC and what it offers for providers, payers, policy leaders, and technology experts who take part. Alvarnas is vice president, Government Affairs; senior medical director, employer strategy, and clinical professor, Department of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope.
Who are the stakeholders who participate in PCOC?
ALVARNAS: The beauty of this meeting is that it really helps to empower stakeholders across the breadth of oncology. We’re not just talking about clinicians, we’re not just talking about leaders of health care systems, but also the other essential members: those in pharma, those who are leading by helping to develop pathways, those who are leading on the payer side by really exercising new levels of creativity in payment systems.
Part of the beauty of this meeting is that you have stakeholders who often have their own meetings and often have separate conversations, and what you fi nd not only in the panels, but also in the breaks in between when people have a chance to visit and talk and chat—whether it’s by a virtual means or an in-person means—is this great cross-pollination of ideas. There’s a general level of excitement that builds in that room as all of these diverse stakeholders, who fairly rarely engage in these kinds of conversations, go deeper and deeper into the future. The beauty of oncology is what makes it so exciting, the diversity of stakeholders, and the depth of conversations that they have around making our system much better.
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