on March 29, 2012 |
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Topics: Oncology, Service Lines, Medical Oncology
Anne Taylor, Oncology Roundtable
We are currently interviewing pharmacy directors to better understand strategies for drug shortage management, from acquiring additional supply, to allocating scarce chemotherapy drugs to patients, to communicating information about shortages to clinical staff and patients.
Unfortunately, the drug shortage problem persists and many institutions are left without a defined strategy as each shortage arises.The clear message we are hearing is that while each shortage is different and requires different management practices, drug shortage management in general requires an enormous amount of resources – most hospitals seem to have either reallocated staff or hired additional FTEs to exclusively manage shortages.
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As drug shortages worsen many add drug shortage management FTEs
on March 27, 2012 |
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Topics: Clinical Decision Support, Electronic Medical Records Strategy, Information Technology, Natural Language Processing, Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, Speech Recognition, Oncology, Service Lines
Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s Newest Medical Student: IBM Watson
While there is nothing elementary about cancer care, IBM’s famous Watson will be in training as an oncologist at NYC’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The IBM-Sloan-Kettering team hopes that Watson technology, capable of processing large datasets in response to natural language questions, will ideally help clinicians apply evidence-based principles to diagnostics and treatment.
Together, IBM and Sloan-Kettering will “feed” Watson information from medical textbooks, the most recent publications in cancer research, the hospital’s clinical data, and with patients’ permission, individual medical records. As Watson processes more information, the team will test the super computer on increasingly challenging cancer cases. Watson is expected to reduce the growing scientific literature to relevant, actionable information for the treatment of individual patients.
Dr. Larry Norton, the deputy chief for breast cancer programs at Sloan-Kettering, quipped to the Boston Globe, “The capabilities are enormous… and unlike my medical students, Watson doesn't forget anything.” Most impressive to Dr. Norton is Watson’s ability to process natural language in plain text form (physician notes); with this, Watson will contextualize the data to provide better recommendations to physicians.
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Memorial Sloan Kettering's newest medical student: IBM Watson
on March 6, 2012 |
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Topics: Oncology, Service Lines, Survivorship, Methodologies, Performance Improvement
Anne Taylor, Oncology Roundtable
Post-treatment cancer survivors often have significant physical and psychosocial concerns. Patients not only face long-lasting physical effects of chemotherapy and radiation, but also emotional issues such as fear of disease recurrence and anxiety over paying medical bills. A recent paper in BMJ Research suggests that physical activity may help patients to alleviate the daily physical and emotional strain of cancer survivorship.
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New analysis finds benefits of physical activity for cancer survivors
