We end this year with yet another encouraging list from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of new drugs or expanded uses for some previously approved drugs for patients with life-threatening cancers. As clinicians focused on delivering quality, cost-effective care to our patients, that is exciting, but the overarching issues of dosing specificity, increasingly specific gene mutation testing, and complex therapy sequencing requirements explain another major trend of 2016: the increasing adoption of standardized pathways. In addition, given the continued explosion in drug pricing and the expanding use of high-cost drugs in more common diseases and in more lines of therapy, payers and providers are working to incorporate expanded decision support tools such as pathways to guide and optimally monitor therapies for patients.
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