Unintended Consequences for Well-Intentioned Actions

You may have heard the maxim "all politics is local." It maintains that a politician’s continued success relies on how well he understands—and accommodates—what really matters to his constituents back home...

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Come Together (and Work Together) Right Now

We’re already well into the second month of 2014, and we’re celebrating some milestones. A much-publicized one is the 50th anniversary of the Beatles coming to America. And we also celebrated another one–this one in our industry–when...

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When Do You Need an Outside Expert?

According to Merriam-Webster.com the definition of tipping point is the critical point in a situation, process or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place...

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Planning for New CMS Rules

The CMS proposed rules for 2013 have arrived. For cancer program administrators in the late ’80s and early ‘90s, new rules just meant a change in the chargemaster. Their finance department made changes in the billing programs and work continued as...

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Integrating Physician Practices and Hospitals: Operations and Culture Matter

Hospitals are seeing an increase in the number of oncology specialists interested in moving from independent practice to employment or in some type of hybrid practice arrangement in order to better manage their economic future. This rapid change is at...

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Unified Approach to Sharing All Images and Records to Streamline Continuity of Care

Hospitals are seeing an increase in the number of oncology specialists interested in moving from independent practice to employment or in some type of hybrid practice arrangement in order to better manage their economic future. This rapid change is at...

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Medical Oncology/Hospital Alignment Must Focus On Operational Efficiency Before The Deal Is Finalized

Here to now, many cancer programs typically contributed to a hospital’s excess of revenues after expenses (fully allocated) or "profit". With "value" as the new normal, cancer program strategies will have to look beyond profit as key measures of success...

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The Challenges of Change

Over the past 30 years, those of us with a career in cancer care have seen dramatic changes. Cancer care has moved from the broad to the targeted, from the simple to the complex and from sequential to interdisciplinary. Cancer patients are now seeing...

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Focus Groups: Part Two

In our previous article related to focus groups, we discussed improving programs and services through the use of patient focus groups. This article will describe how focus groups can positively impact the planning and design of cancer centers...

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The Fiscal Cliff, Health Care Impacts and the Need for Operational Efficiency

Once again, the fiscal environment for health care is changing! Congress and the President just passed legislation to avoid the "fiscal cliff" that included essential items that impact health care. One of the most critical stops the 26.5% reimbursement...

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Focus Groups: Part One

Customer—and potential customer—feedback is worth its weight in gold. Once you’ve gathered and evaluated adeptly acquired customer insights you can interpret them to shape strategy, policies and operations that deliver the best service and value...

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Breast Center Accreditation & Certification Comes of Age
Part Three — BICOE and EUSOMA

In the final installment of the Breast Center Accreditation & Certification Comes of Age series, we will discuss Breast Imaging Center of Excellence (BICOE) designation, conferred by the American College of Radiology (ACR) and the European Society of...

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Phase IV Studies Ethics & Scientific Issues IOM Report Released

Post-marketing (or Phase IV) studies are routinely cited as the fastest growing drug research phase. Phase IV studies are initiated after the FDA has approved a product for the open market. In late August 2012, the New England Journal of Medicine...

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Breast Center Accreditation
Part Two — NQMBC uses Process Measures

While the National Accreditation program for Breast Centers (NAPBC) focuses on structure and program elements (see Part I of this article), the National Quality Measures for Breast Centers ™ (NQMBC) emphasizes processes, performance...

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Breast Center Accreditation & Certification Comes of Age
Part One

This year, the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC) begins re-evaluating breast centers originally surveyed when the program began formal accreditation in late 2008. Clearly, quality measures for breast cancer care are...

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The Challenge of Cancer Screening
Part Two — Breast Cancer and Cervical Cancer

As reported in our previous article "The Challenges of Cancer Screening: Part One — Prostate Cancer and Lung Cancer Screening," cancer screening is an important element in the cancer care continuum. Very little in clinical cancer care engenders so...

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The Challenge of Cancer Screening
Part One — Prostate Cancer and Lung Cancer Screening

This year, the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC) begins re-evaluating breast centers originally surveyed when the program began formal accreditation in late 2008. Clearly, quality measures for breast cancer care are...

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Radiation & Prostate Cancer
Dilemma & Decision

Controversies over screening and treatment for early stage prostate disease are not the only debates going on in prostate cancer care. Physicians and radiation oncology leaders planning to expand their prostate treatment service lines must also assess...

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Target Therapy Finder
High Tech App Provides a New Cancer Care Decision Tool

Have you got an iPhone? Or maybe an iPad? Now it may help you and your physician identify appropriate diagnostic tests for melanoma, options for optimum treatment and clinical trials for this most serious of all skin cancers — options and trials that...

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Cancer Care and Survivors
Cancer Survivors’ Increase — Cancer Rehabilitation Programs Offer Program Opportunities

Today, almost 4% of the US public are cancer survivors, not including individuals diagnosed with common (non-melanoma) skin cancers. On March 11, 2011, the Centers for Disease Control announced in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly...

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Rising Costs of Cancer Care

"Unsustainable Cancer Costs" read a Bloomberg News headline last month. The news story quoted an expert panel assembled by The Lancet Oncology medical journal, saying, "Cancer treatment costs are rising at such a rapid rate that they threaten to...

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Personal Medicine & Genomic Profiling Enter the Mainstream?
Direct-to-Physician Marketing

While limited prognostic genomic testing is available for breast cancer, for most tumor sites, personalized medicine tests are still seen as "on the drawing board" or at best, experimental. However, beginning in 2008, three companies have entered the...

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Cancer Program Success Questions
Cancer Registry Class of Case as a Decision-Support Resource: Part II — Non-Analytic Cases

Non-analytic cases are classified, in the "new" system, according to the reason a patient is non-analytic (to the reporting institution), or the reason a patient who never received care at this institution has had his/her case abstracted. Non-analytic...

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IOM Releases New Report on Cancer Treatment Planning

Earlier this month, on June 13, 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a pre-publication copy of a Workshop Summary that may assist community cancer program leaders to establish more formal multidisciplinary pre-treatment planning—a model...

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Cancer Program Success Questions
Cancer Registry Class of Case as a Decision-Support Resource: Part I — Analytic Cases

  • "Is Dr. Wayward a loyal supporter of our cancer program; or is he finding cancer among our patients and transferring them to the other community hospital for treatment?"
  • "How many patients leave our physicians and hospital, once cancer is diagnosed, to receive their treatment elsewhere?"
  • "How many patients seek breast cancer care at our institution, with our newly installed fellowship-trained breast surgeon, even when they receive their diagnosis at another local hospital?"

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Operational and Financial Benchmarking for Oncology

As healthcare consumes a significant portion of the US budget, oncology services similarly consume a significant portion of any hospital’s budget. The need to recruit qualified and wellpaid clinicians, the continuing medical arms race to ensure...

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Providing Palliative Care: The Right Thing to Do

The number of Palliative Care Programs (PCP) in large and not-for-profit U.S. hospitals has increased 125.8 percent over the last eight years according to a recent study by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and the National Palliative...

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Comparative Effectiveness Research: Implications for Healthcare Executives©

In the recently passed $787B Economic Stimulus Package Bill, $1.1B is designated for healthcare comparative effectiveness research (CER). A paper developed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 2007 states that the current healthcare...

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Developing a Quality Improvement Program

In its 1999 report Ensuring Quality Cancer Care, the Institute of Medicine noted, “... for many Americans with cancer, there is a wide gulf between what could be construed as the ideal and the reality of their experience with cancer care.”...

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Design of the Ideal Workplace: Strategies and Lessons Learned

As the need for cancer care grows, so does the need for facilities that address the needs of patients and their families. The design of a cancer center must support the treatment and interventional process and maximize the feeling of comfort...

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Fragmented Care Summary

Amost a decade ago, no less an august body than the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that, “for many Americans with cancer, there is a wide gulf between what could be construed as the ideal and the reality of their experience with cancer care.”...

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Niche Summary

The Oncology Group is frequently approached by fledgling cancer programs and programs developing programs with smaller cancer patient volumes whose leaders ask, “Can we begin to grow our cancer program by first developing a profitable niche...

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