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Embedding Health Equity into the Core of Healthcare

April 04, 2023
7:44 pm

The Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health was released in 1985, serving as a catalyst for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to begin addressing health disparities, and Congress to form the Office of Minority Health within HHS the following year. Today, much of the progress in this arena is taking place in the private sector. The healthcare industry is taking steps to achieve health equity with considerable vigor and with some lessons learned under its belt. The Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), representing all health industry sectors, released a report in January 2023 with ZS, entitled, “Addressing Health Equity: Practical Solutions to Address Variations in Care,” identifying multiple structural barriers in both the private and public sectors that contribute to existing health disparities. The report was followed by a release stating HLC members’ commitment to shared principles aimed at eliminating health disparities. HLC also recently hosted a webinar, “Breaking Down Barriers to Achieve the Highest Level of Health,” in which representatives from its member companies discussed current strategies and overarching philosophies. The panel was made up of three participants:

  • Joneigh Khaldun, MD, Chief Health Equity Officer, CVS Health
  • Josette Gbemudu, Executive Director, Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health, Merck
  • Keith Dawson, Principal Science Leader, Global Health Equity and Population Science, Genentech

Dr. Khaldun opened by describing CVS’s enterprise-wide health equity strategy, highlighting the need to empower all employees by educating them about systemic inequities and providing tailored training for cultural competency. Dr. Khaldun also talked about measuring what matters to uncover inequities and utilizing these insights to design programs and policies to address them effectively. Examples of specific programs included CVS’s Community Equity Alliance, which aligns academic, community and healthcare partners to expand and integrate community health workers into care teams, and its workforce innovation training centers, which support job training needs across the country. Dr. Khaldun noted that disparities took centuries to develop, and that health equity is a journey that will not be achieved by one initiative in a short period of time.

Josette Gbemudu echoed Dr. Khaldun in that there must be internal integration of health equity across an entire business and not just through one initiative. She pointed to Merck’s $650 million commitment to improving maternal health globally and how it is using the learnings to embed health equity into its core business functions. Citing numerous statistics to show the broad range of disparities, Josette shared that Merck is not just focused on addressing social determinants of health barriers such as food insecurity, health literacy and health access, but it is dedicated to strengthening the entire health ecosystem. Merck Foundation launched a $20 million initiative to advance equity in U.S. cancer care. Josette emphasized that many communities have historically been unable to access screenings, which leads to later diagnoses and poorer outcomes. The alliance is utilizing a collaborative approach to build community partnerships in order to address barriers to care.

Keith Dawson discussed Genentech’s efforts to develop solutions that will broaden inclusion of historically underrepresented groups in clinical research so that all patients can realize the full benefits of personalized healthcare. He stressed that clinical research is not benefiting all groups equally, that genomic data is not diverse enough and that Blacks and Hispanics are not informed about clinical trial opportunities. The diversity of patients enrolled in clinical studies is highly correlated with site personnel diversity, he pointed out. Keith stated that Genentech prioritizes fostering belonging and cultivating an environment where all are included. The Advancing Inclusive Research Site Alliance Partnership was created to develop an ecosystem based on trust and meeting patients where they are. This alliance uses an external council of advisors and patient and provider partnerships to provide educational tools to improve awareness of clinical trials. It also distributes grants to external organizations striving to address inclusive research, equity in care and workforce diversity.

Exploring the Changing Landscape of Cancer Care

January 24, 2023
2:01 pm

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death across the globe and affects the lives of millions every year in the United States. As advances have been made in screening, diagnosing and therapeutics, providers have been able to utilize new technologies and precision medicine to achieve improved outcomes. The Healthcare Leadership Council hosted a webinar to highlight the commitment to medical research and discovery and the most recent accomplishments of some of its member companies. The webinar, “What’s New in Cancer Innovation?”, included three panelists:

  • Dr. Qasim Ahmad, Head of US Oncology Medical Affairs, Novartis
  • Dr. Harlan Levine, President, Health Innovation and Policy, City of Hope
  • Victoria Raymond, Senior Director of Medical Affairs, Guardant Health

Ms. Raymond described Guardant’s focus on blood-based diagnostics as a less invasive way to screen for specific cancers. This method of screening can assist in early detection as well as ensuring appropriate therapy selection. Dr. Ahmad concurred that there has been a shift from making the patient fit the treatment, to making the treatment fit the patient. He presented Novartis’s strategy to harness the power of targeted therapy, immunotherapy, cell and gene therapy, and radioligand therapy to attack cancer using multiple approaches and provide the best outcomes for patients at every stage of the disease.

Dr. Levine noted that the rate of change in oncology exceeds the ability for most oncologists to keep up with the advances in each subtype of cancer or surgical technique. He stated that while with precision medicine and genomics we are able to identify tumor types and DNA signals, we still address value-based oncology with tools that were developed decades ago as though cancer is a single specialty with only a handful of chemotherapy agents. Reliance on these generic tools will limit the benefit of emerging technology and propagate disparities.

The discussion underscored the lack of diversity across clinical trial sites, doctors, study investigators and trial participants. A map was provided as a visual to portray how one’s survival is directly impacted by one’s zip code. The need to innovate the system so that it is accessible and equitable is vital to improving cancer care. The panelists acknowledged efforts to increase diversity in clinical trials and addressing barriers that hinder trial participation and access to treatment. Educating the public on opportunities is just one piece of the puzzle. Finding easier ways for people to follow through with what they know they need to do is the next challenge.

Finally, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was raised as a hindrance to cancer research, which require long-term commitments and significant investments.  There is a need for broader understanding of the investment required to subsidize clinical trials for cell-based therapies and the potential impact of the IRA in discouraging that investment. Policy measures that result in reduced research and fewer trials, ultimately limiting access to new therapies, is harmful to patients and society as a whole.

The Meaning of Personalized Healthcare

July 10, 2020
10:47 am

Personalized medicine is one of the very popular buzzphrases in healthcare, but not everyone has a complete understanding of what personalized healthcare means for patients, the healthcare system and the future of medicine.  HLC member Genentech has provided an important service by describing this branch of medical science and its potential in recently-published sponsored content in Politico.

In the Politico piece, Dr. Mark Lee, Global Head of Personalized Health Care, Product Development for Roche and Genentech describes personalized medicine succinctly, “Scientific and technological advancements are allowing us to leverage the vast amounts of data that we can access to help patients receive the right treatment at the right time.  Not every patient responds the same way, and it is incredibly challenging to predict who’s going to benefit from which medicine and how.  But there is now more data per patient than ever before, allowing us to hone in on the subtle differences that make each of us unique to deliver more personalized treatments that can yield better outcomes.”

As Dr. Lee points out, in addition to improving care at the patient level, having this detailed information about patients of different ages, ethnicities, genetic backgrounds and health conditions will transform and strengthen clinical trials and drug development in years to come.

I highly recommend this content in Politico to gain a greater understanding of how personalized medicine will change care delivery in the foreseeable future.

Guest Post: The Underutilization of Prevention

March 12, 2020
11:50 am

Robert Popovian is Vice President of U.S. Government Relations at Pfizer

One of the most underutilized ways to reduce medical costs in the U.S. is health care prevention. Unfortunately, politicians choose instead to implement draconian policies such as price controls or utilization management, which focus solely on cost management without any consideration given to patient outcomes or the value of an intervention to society.

The reason policymakers promote these types of measures is twofold. One, these policies are simple to implement and two, they reach their intended results quickly by reducing budgets, whether it be hospital costs or drug expenditures. On the other hand, promotion of preventative measures are complicated and challenging to implement and are thus ignored, despite the fact that the data show that such measures lead to better patient outcomes, including improvements in quality of life and productivity.

The two examples of preventative interventions that have not only shown to reduce costs but also improve outcomes are improving immunization rates and medication adherence.

Vaccines are one of the most cost-beneficial interventions in health care. In the U.S., we have done a great job ensuring our children are protected from various communicable diseases. Vaccination rates for most serious ailments are in the 90th percentile for children. However, the same cannot be said when it comes to adults, as their vaccination rates are abysmal. For example, less than 50% of adults get a flu shot every year.  What’s even more alarming is that approximately 20% of high-risk patients (e.g., patients suffering from lung disease) receive a pneumococcal vaccine. Both measures are well below the Healthy 2020 targets set by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP).

One approach to encourage adult vaccination is to further expand community-based pharmacist immunization capabilities. The evidence is clear that allowing pharmacists to provide vaccinations is the lowest cost alternative for providing this essential public health service. So it is vital that we expand and harmonize state laws governing pharmacist authority to immunize and to allow pharmacists to administer all Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved and Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended vaccines.

The second example of a cost-saving preventative intervention is medication adherence. One of the most cost-effective ways to improve patient adherence is through pharmacist-led medication synchronization. Medication synchronization is a service that has been offered for the past several years by pharmacists to patients who take multiple chronic medications.

A pharmacist collaborating with a physician and in consultation with the patient ensures that all of the patient’s medications are refilled on the same day. Pharmacists operationalize the concept by making an appointment with a patient to pick up their prescriptions every month, or at 60 or 90 days — depending on the refill schedule — and to discuss other issues pertinent to their care, such as over-the-counter medicine usage, smoking cessation needs or vaccination requirements. Medication synchronization has not only reduced the number of trips a patient has to take to the pharmacy and lessened the administrative burden for pharmacists and physicians, but most importantly it has led to better patient medication adherence and cost savings overall.

In 2014, for example, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) decided that patients enrolled in Medicare Part D plans should have the opportunity to synchronize their medications if they choose to and if it is deemed appropriate by their pharmacist or physician, not only because it improved adherence but also because of the overall health care cost reductions. In their analysis, CMS stated, “while the estimated total 6-year cost of this rule to Part D sponsors is $0.5 million, the savings to Part D sponsors and beneficiaries is $1.8 billion.” More recently, a research article published in Health Affairs suggested that patients with cardiovascular disease whose medications were synchronized were three times more adherent with their medications leading to 9% lower hospitalization and emergency department visits.

Fortunately, most states except for California and a handful of smaller ones have taken the lead from CMS to allow all patients in need to benefit from medication synchronization. It is now up to the pharmacists to offer this service universally to their patients.

No one denies that saving health care costs is a noble cause, and everyone agrees that it is not an easy task. However, policymakers are only focusing on the side of the ledger marked “cost”.  Instead, they should be implementing policies that guide us towards the goal of disease prevention to achieve the ultimate endpoint of reducing health care costs while improving patient outcomes.

The Necessary Next Step in the Battle Against Substance Addiction

January 28, 2020
3:42 pm

One area in which we have seen a great deal of bipartisanship in Washington is in the effort to prevent and treat substance use disorder.  In 2018, Congress passed groundbreaking legislation by overwhelming margins in both houses that gave states the resources they need to combat what was then commonly known as the opioid crisis.

But as U.S. Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) pointed out at a recent congressional hearing, the battle is far from over.  As she said, this addiction crisis has come in waves – the first being prescription pain medicines, the second heroin, the third synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and now, “it looks like a ‘fourth wave’ of the crisis may have already arrived.  The opioid epidemic has fueled a huge increase in methamphetamine use.  In 2018, there were more than twice as many deaths involving meth as 2015, and meth is increasingly turning up in overdose deaths and drug busts across the country.”

Given this continued high level of addiction and overdose cases, it is imperative that we give healthcare providers the tools they need to effectively treat substance use disorder patients.  So, an essential next step in combating this drug crisis must involve addressing regulatory barriers that are standing between medical professionals and the information they need to provide effective diagnosis and treatment.

A law that is more than 40 years old, known as 42 CFR Part 2, places information sharing in substance use disorder cases on a different plane that that applied to all other patients under HIPAA laws.  42 CFR Part 2 places strict limitations on confidential data sharing among front-line caregivers and, in so doing, makes care coordination extraordinarily difficult.  This outdated law worsens the odds of substance use disorder patients surviving and recovering.

There are two bills that have been introduced in Congress to address this problem.  The Overdose Prevention and Patient Safety Act in the House and the Protecting Jessica Grubb’s Legacy Act in the Senate would remove these regulatory stumbling blocks and enable caregivers to have the information they need to do their jobs.

The necessity of these measures was underscored by an official with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, who told Congress,  “We have invested a lot of resources through peer support and other tools to try to support that coordination, care management, etc. but there is still a huge limitation.  Even doctors within the same system can’t easily talk to each other to coordinate care around their patients.  North Carolina is fully supportive of modernizing 42 CFR in an attempt to maintain privacy but also move us to integrated care.”