Practice Management
The Limitations of Big Data in Cancer Care
There is little chance of escaping the spell that big data has cast over the healthcare industry. “Anytime you listen to any conference, just about every panel, just about every speaker at some point brings up the idea of the use of data for value based care, for value contracts, for quality measures, for new indications for drugs,” said Brad Hirsch, MD, Senior Medical Director, Flatiron Health, New York, NY, at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care. [ Read More ]Leveraging Clinical Data Through Diagnosis Codes as a Successful Oncology Practice
Strategizing patients by determining which patients and what volume of patients will require the most resources is essential to positioning your practice for a successful future. Any business model would identify the needs of a population before defining what services should be brought to a given area, and medical practices should follow suit. [ Read More ]Foundation Medicine and Other Catagories
At this point, Foundation Medicine is exclusively an oncology company, but our next-generation sequencing technique, which can deep sequence hundreds of genes with world?class laboratory capability and world?class computational biology capability, certainly has potential applicability. Immunotherapy comes to mind. Immunotherapy, [ Read More ]
Practice & Clinical Managers’ Role
According to Vicki Kennedy, practice and clinical managers can play a vital role in identifying patient needs and in providing information about resources available to patients. Practice and clinical managers can help bring resource information into the practice and make [ Read More ]
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Shows Specialty Drugs Offer Value Despite High Cost
Despite substantially higher costs, specialty drugs can offer value comparable with that of traditional medications under certain circumstances, according to a recent cost-effectiveness analysis covering 12 years of FDA drug approvals (Chambers JD, et al. Health Aff [Millwood]. 2014;33:1751-1760). Specialty [ Read More ]
The New Oncology Care Management Model
We all have a variety of reasons for entering the nursing profession. My wish to be an oncology nurse developed from a desire to be challenged by new situations each day. In the more than 25 years during my tenure [ Read More ]
Dress Codes and Related Employee Appearance Issues
One of the most challenging issues for human resource (HR) managers is how best to align company policies regarding appearance, grooming, and hygiene with business necessity, safety, legal compliance, and reasonable accommodation. This article identifies the substantive aspects of dress [ Read More ]
Tension at the Top
In the group practice setting, I have seen many of my practice manager friends and colleagues retire, change jobs, or—worse yet— be relieved of their management position. What is going on lately? External pressures from the outside and internal pressures [ Read More ]
Use RNs as Care Coordinators in Your Practice
The healthcare market has begun to redefine or change the qualifications of the care coordinator/manager. This new definition is not being driven by the new care models, service changes, or qualifications. Simply put, it is because of financial reimbursement, government [ Read More ]