Deep Dive - Season 4

In leading the biosimilar adoption effort at Intermountain Healthcare, Dr. Steven Yates speaks with The Center for Biosimilars on his organization’s approach to improving uptake of biosimilars. With issues ranging from provider education to manufacturer and payer relationships, Dr Yates further discusses potential regulatory action and other efforts to streamline use of biosimilars.

Randall A. Oyer, MD, Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) President for 2020-2021, and Medical Director of the Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute at Lancaster General Health, discusses the mission of the ACCC Community Oncology Research Institute (ACORI), and the unmet need it fulfills in the oncology community.

Matthew A. Michela has been a healthcare industry executive for 30 years, serving in leadership positions in both the payer and care management sectors. He joined Life Image in 2015 with the mission of democratizing data to create an interoperable healthcare ecosystem that creates a connected view of a patient’s journey. By evolving and transforming the Life Image network into an innovative digital platform for the sharing of any and all clinical information including medical images, healthcare professionals can see data in a comprehensive way. This enables them to better learn from the data, make better informed clinical decisions, improve the patient care experience, and ultimately make new discoveries.

Gregory W. Albers, MD shared his insight into the development and clinical use of RapidAI, a platform that leverages artificial intelligence to create enhanced, high-quality images from noncontrast CT, CT angiography, CT perfusion, and MRI diffusion and perfusion data, aiming to expedient diagnoses, treatment, and transfer decisions that impact the clinical care of patients with stroke.

Despite the expenses that can come with the holiday season, planning ahead and sticking to the budget can keep health care professionals financially healthy during Black Friday. In an interview, Tim Ulbrich, PharmD, discussed common financial problems that occur around the holidays, shopping traps to avoid on Black Friday, and some potentially beneficial financial purchases to make on Black Friday.

On this episode of Deep Dive, Chris Zorn, clinic operations administrator at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, joins us to discuss holiday cheer in ambulatory oncology clinics. Zorn explains how his clinic promotes holiday cheer in a personalized way as well as offers insights into helping patients navigate family holiday visits and wanting to share holiday gifts with their health care providers.

On this episode of Deep Dive, obesity expert Ted Kyle joins us to discuss the prevalence of weight bias in health care, how media portrayal of patients with obesity exacerbates the issue, strategies primary care clinicians can use to check their own weight bias, and the advocacy work he is currently spearheading to change the narrative of weight stigma in health care.

In an interview with CURE, Dr. Changchuan Jiang discusses a recent study exploring chronic conditions in cancer survivors, why they come about, how they change over time and what can be done to address these issues.

During breast cancer awareness month and beyond, the role of breast imagers in radiology expand far beyond administering a mammogram or screening ultrasound. For radiologist Dana K. Bonaminio, MD, interfacing with patients and spreading awareness of the importance of breast cancer screening are highlights of her career, which she has dedicated to breast imaging.

Thomas G. Martin, MD discusses the research around CD38 antibody therapy for multiple myeloma, how they compare to approved agent and potential triplet and quadruplet combinations for the future.

Linda Spaulding RN-BC, CIC, CHEC, CHOP, is an infection preventionist and a consultant who helps hospitals and other health care systems (but mostly hospitals) solve their infection prevention problems. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, IPs were not only respected, they were the much-sought-after experts whom other health care professionals turned to when they had questions about how best to protect their patients and themselves from SARS-CoV-2. Flash forward some 20 months and IPs are once more being treated as the step-children in health care, says Spaulding.

Una Lee, MD, and Wai Lee, MD, discuss the outcomes of a study examining the perspectives of urological surgeons on mid-urethral sling (MUS) surgery for women with stress incontinence.

The COVID pandemic is driving interest in the importance of the immune system to human health, and platform technologies to preventing and treating disease. There are roughly 60 million patients in western society dealing with immune mediated diseases. Tackling drug development through a pathway approach opens the potential to treat multiple diseases with one therapy. New ongoing research by Janssen Immunology continues to validate their “pipeline in a pathway” model to treating immune mediated diseases in multiple therapeutic areas including psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis and more.

Communication between health care providers and their patients are critical during patient appointments, but the communication outside of those appointments is just as critical both for the health of the patient and the success of the practice. We spoke with Serge Longin, co-founder and CEO of RevenueWell, a digital communications provider for dental practices, who shared insights on how to connect with patients in ways that meet the needs of both patients and practices, as well as the benefits of newer technologies that enable more flexible communications without sacrificing privacy or security.

In October, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association, declared a national state of emergency in child and adolescent mental health and are calling on policy makers to join them. Contemporary Pediatrics spoke with Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and Georgetown University School of Medicine, about why this national emergency was declared, and what pediatricians can do to address this crisis.

Dr. William Schaffner chatted at the inflection point of COVID-19 vaccine booster dose regulation: the Vaccines and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) had just given unanimous support to Moderna’s and Johnson & Johnson’s booster dose applications, and the FDA was days away from revamping the eligibility and availability of those doses and the already emergency-authorized dose from Pfizer-BioNTech.

Sumair Akhtar, chief clinical officer at Livio Health, and John Park, the company’s chief growth officer explore palliative care, the differences between palliative care and hospice, and some of the obstacles to providing palliative care to patients who need it.

Many medical professionals still believe in the stigma of medical cannabis use. Oftentimes, a personal experience is the only thing that will ultimately change a person’s perspective on medical cannabis. Nique Pichette, MSN, RN, falls into this category. She was against cannabis until she had a recurrence of breast cancer and was left with little other treatment options. Now in remission, Nique believes in the benefits of medical cannabis for a variety of illnesses and helps educate the medical community. Our discussion talks about her personal journey, the way it impacted her nursing career, her current role as a nurse seeking higher education for medical cannabis, and more.

Michael Krychman and Alyssa Dweck discuss the North American Menopause Society’s 2021 Annual Meeting, the latest menopause products, and more.

As social determinants of health became further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, findings of ShareCare’s Community Well-Being Index highlighted the significant differences in health outcomes present in rural and urban areas. In the interview, Elizabeth Colyer, senior vice president of ShareCare, discusses these findings and further considerations for managing community well-being of affected communities.

Raymond U. Osarogiagbon, MD, an oncologist at Baptist Cancer Center, discusses disparities in lung cancer care in the United States.

Fifty years in - CT remains a cornerstone of medical imaging, aiding not only in diagnosis of disease or trauma, but also in helping to plan and guide therapeutic interventions as well as monitor their outcomes. Diagnostic Imaging spoke with Cynthia H. McCollough, PhD, to discuss how CT is currently utilized and highlighted the many ways we can optimize its use in different clinical scenarios, especially when taking into account the technology that allows us to personalize the experience for each patient.

Dr. Mitzi Joi Williams, a board-certified neurologist and MS specialist based in Atlanta, Georgia, offered her perspective on the unique aspects of care when it comes to treating millennial patients with multiple sclerosis. She spoke to their differences from older generations in understanding their disease and their desire to be involved in the decision-making process when it comes to disease-modifying therapies and care goals.