News

COVID Jump-Starts Cancer Care at Home

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country and hospitals reduced in-person visits to a bare minimum, health systems—such as Partners Healthcare, M Health Fairview and Northwestern—worked to ensure that patients in their cancer centers had access to therapy in their own homes whenever possible. To ensure optimal outcomes, care teams switched some patients to…

Pandemic Management Strategies for Patients With Cancer at an Academic Medical Center

By Martha Stutsky, PharmD, BCPS; and Osama Abdelghany, PharmD, MHA, BCOP Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven Health System in Connecticut is 1 of 45 National Cancer Institute–designated comprehensive cancer hospitals and 1 of 27 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) hospitals in the United States. In addition to the main cancer center, the health…

COVID-19 and the Impact on Oral Oncolytics: A Specialty Pharmacy Perspective

By Claudia S. Castro, PharmD, MS, BCOP, BCGP; and Amanda Manoogian, PharmD, BCOP The prevalence of individuals living with cancer continues to rise, largely because of an aging and growing population along with advances in oncology care. More than 16.9 million US individuals with a history of cancer were alive on January 1, 2019.1 On January…

Health Systems Versus Payors: A Duel for SP Care

Dueling misperceptions among health plans and payors about the value each brings to patient care can make it difficult for them to forge effective partnerships, according to a recent survey of the stakeholders from Trellis Rx.

Digital Technology: An Effective Communication Tool for Pharmacy Staff During COVID-19

By Vinay Sawant, RPh, MPH, MBA; Ayse Hursid, PharmD; Osama Abdelghany, PharmD, MHA, BCOP; and Terri Sue Bukowski, PharmD, CSP The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in rewriting the proverbial “playbook” for all organizations. Information has been in a constant state of fluidity since the pandemic began and employees had to depend on…

New Program Develops and Implements Customized Payer Access Blueprint for Health System Specialty Pharmacies

By Meredith Holt, National Vice President of Sales Key Concepts Payer access is a significant barrier to delivering care to complex patients. Gaining and retaining access to payers is challenging for health system specialty pharmacies. The Excelera Payer Access Program provides expert education and analysis, identifies high-value targets and the ideal payer mix, cultivates contractual…

Skin Cancer Awareness Month and the Importance of Skin Care

Pharmacy Times® spoke with Jennifer Craig, PharmD, CSP, about Skin Cancer Awareness Month and the importance of skin care. Craig said that the health care industry is constantly evolving and improving patient care services, but more specifically in specialty pharmacy, the collaboration of care has been key. Further, with the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, Craig…

The Importance of Payer Access to Health System Specialty Pharmacies

By Meredith Holt, National Vice President of Sales Key Concepts  Health system specialty pharmacies typically experience high lost script rates, meaning they are contractually unable to dispense specialty medications to patients who are referred to them and must transfer the prescriptions to another specialty pharmacy. Challenges to accessing managed care contracts include specialty drug lock-outs,…

Hospitals adapt real estate to fit new normal after COVID-19

Health systems are reassessing their real estate portfolios as they prepare for a post-COVID-19 environment that will likely feature more home-based care and remote working arrangements.

New Combination Therapies for the Treatment of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Erin Kelley, PharmD, BCOP, and Jeff Engle, PharmD, MS, Fairview Health

CHRONIC LYMPHOCYTIC LEUKEMIA (CLL) is the most common type of leukemia in adults and accounts for approximately 37% of new leukemia cases. An estimated 20,720 new cases of and 3930 deaths from CLL will occur in the United States in 2019.