Protons for Prostate Cancer: the Dream Versus the Reality
In an editorial published in the January 2, 2013, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Theodore Lawrence and Mary Feng discuss a recent study that compared proton radiotherapy and photon radiotherapy for treatment of prostate cancer in Medicare patients. Lawrence and Feng identify the shortcomings of the ...
Shared Decision Making to Improve Care and Reduce Costs
In a New England Journal of Medicine January 3, 2013 article, Emily Oshima Lee and Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel discuss the potential for shared decision making to improve the quality of care patients receive and potentially reduce costs. The authors suggest that a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ...
Cancer Patients Should Be Wary of Needless Tests and Treatments
When the diagnosis is cancer, many people understandably want to pull out all the stops to treat it. But some tests, treatments and procedures not only are unnecessary but also can be harmful. “Sometimes less really is more,” says Lowell E. Schnipper, chief of hematology-oncology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical ...
When Treating Cancer Is Not an Option
When my husband learned he had advanced lung cancer, he didn’t even want to speak to an oncologist about chemotherapy. He saw no point in treatment that could not cure him and might make him feel worse. Not so, though, for a majority of patients diagnosed with cancers of the lung ...
NCCS receives Cardinal Health Foundation grant to improve patient safety
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship was selected by the Cardinal Health Foundation as one of 42 grant recipients to fund organizational programs that help U.S. hospitals, health systems and community health organizations improve the effectiveness, efficiency and excellence of patient care. The grant will help support NCCS's efforts in ...
NCCS sponsors IOM study to demographic issues in quality of cancer care
NCCS, along with 11 other organizations sponsored an Institute of Medicine (IOM) consensus study: Improving the Quality of Cancer Care: Addressing the Challenges of an Aging Population. On May 21, 2012, the committee began to examine issues in the quality of cancer care with a specific focus on the demographic changes ...
NCCS participates in roundtable meeting to discuss future of Health IT
NCCS was recently invited to participate in a roundtable discussion on the potential role of Health Information Technology in cancer care and care coordination. Senior Health Policy Advisor Ellen Stovall attended the June 7th meeting organized by the National Cancer Institute at NIH, the eHealth Initiative, and Dr. Farzad Mostashari, ...
ASCO Announces CancerLinQ, an Initiative to Transform Cancer Care
ASCO is embarking on CancerLinQ, a multi-phase initiative that promises to change the way cancer is understood and treated. This "rapid learning system" will harness technological advances to connect oncology practices, measure quality and performance, and provide physicians with decision support in real time. Cancer science and information technology are ...
There’s a medical app for that—or not
Mobile software is part of the most important movement in health care. Will government regulators suffocate it? Even the most ideologically opposed politicians agree: Health care is choking on paperwork, and medicine is prone to errors of handwriting, lost information and guesswork. That's why the promotion of health information technology ...
Focus on quality of life may cut health-care costs
A new focus on patient well being and quality-of-life issues could improve health-care outcomes and reduce costs, as WSJ explains in today’s special report on innovation in health care. Well-being and quality of life may seem like fairly vague concepts for doctors, compared to say, blood-pressure readings and cholesterol levels ...
