WCOE: ACA Open Enrollment, Drug Prices and Innovation, Breast Cancer Awareness and More
What Caught Our Eye (WCOE) Each week, we take a closer look at the cancer policy articles, studies, and stories that caught our attention. This week, several articles caught our eye: Amy Berman shared her own experience “Choosing Wisely” when she opted for a single dose of radiation therapy to alleviate ...
Incremental Improvements Are Not Enough
Two years ago, the world lost an extraordinary person, my dear friend Dr. Brent Whitworth. He was a few days shy of his 42nd birthday when he learned of his diagnosis – stage IV kidney cancer – and he was devastated. He had surgery at a major cancer hospital and ...
WCOE: “Why I Hope to Die at 75” and a New IOM Report on Quality and End of Life Preferences
What Caught Our Eye (WCOE) Each week, we take a closer look at the cancer policy articles, studies, and stories that caught our attention. Are we finally ready to address the repeated recommendations in these series of reports and to make it possible for our healthcare system, providers of care, and ...
The Difficult Question of When to Stop Treatment
Yesterday, I stumbled across the Twitter chat #whentostop, hosted by the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS), addressing one of the most difficult questions anyone with cancer has to face: when is it time to stop treatment? I am new to Twitter chats, though I have lurked during the Healthcare Leader (#hcldr) and the Breast Cancer Social Media ...
WCOE: Planning for Hospice, Difficult Conversations, and Second Opinions
What Caught Our Eye (WCOE) Each week, we take a closer look at the cancer policy articles, studies, and stories that caught our attention. As avid followers of Susan Gubar’s series in The New York Times on living with cancer, we read her most recent installment, “Living with Cancer: A Tour of Hospice” ...
WCOE: Childhood Cancer Action Day, NCCS Provides Patient Perspective at IOM Workshop, and Pre-Hospice Program Report
What Caught Our Eye (WCOE) Each week, we take a closer look at the cancer policy articles, studies, and stories that caught our attention. It is unfortunate that our current system and incentives focus on volume, rather than patients’ health and well-being. In a blog post on The Hill, Stephen Crowley ...
Medicare Care Choices Program and Cancer Care Planning for Medicare Beneficiaries
An op-ed authored by NCCS CEO Shelley Fuld Nasso and published in the Santa Barbara Independent today championed hospice care, the Medicare Care Choices Program, and cancer care planning for Medicare beneficiaries. "Just as the hospice program will give the patient the power to decide the elements of their care, ...
NCCS Applauds Test of Care Choices for Cancer Patients
The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) applauds the recent decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to initiate the Medicare Care Choices Model, a project to evaluate the impact of permitting Medicare patients to receive ongoing curative care while also receiving hospice care. “NCCS has focused its ...
NPR Health “As Palliative Care Need Grows, Specialists Are Scarce”
In recent article, Lydia Zuraw reports on the disconnect between the supply of palliative care specialists and the demand for these services. Citing a recent assessment of the shortfall as determined by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the article notes a need of as many as 18,000 physicians focused on ...
JAMA Study on End-of-Life Care Shows Increase in Hospice Use and Aggressive Care
A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined changes in end-of-life care for Medicare beneficiaries from 2000 to 2009. The study authors reported an increase in the use of hospice care, particularly for cancer patients, but also an increase in ICU usage, health care transitions ...
