Kerin B. Adelson, MD, of the Yale Cancer Center, discusses the major healthcare cost drivers at the end of life—aggressive treatments, emergency room visits, and futile care—and strategies for improving value. (Abstract 3)
Lee N. Newcomer, MD, of the UnitedHealth Group, gives his perspective on how to assess quality in the age of precision medicine.
Randall F. Holcombe, MD, of the Icahn Mount Sinai School of Medicine, discusses the challenges of delivering quality care in an academic setting at a large hospital.
Joseph V. Simone, MD, of the Simone Consulting Company, reflects on the prospects for the future of safety and quality.
Steven Shak, MD, of Genomic Health, discusses mortality among patients with early-stage hormone receptor–positive invasive breast cancer in the SEER database who were treated based on the 21-gene Recurrence Score results (Abstract 176).
Sandra L. Wong, MD, of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, summarizes three abstracts for which she was the discussant. The topics were rates of surgical site infections, an online resource for hospital cancer surgery volumes, and barriers to oncology appointments at comprehensive cancer centers. (Abstracts 171, 172, 55)
