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Commentary: What If!

By William T. McGivney, PhD, CEO

In the torrent of writings in health policy and in the sagacity of legislative discussions and health care reform, policy makers vie for inclusion, or even a vague recognition, of their personal view and plan for improving decision-making in the health care system. In these discussions and debates, oncology is always a focus because of the incidence of the diseases, the evolution of the diseases into chronic conditions, and because of the expense of the plethora of innovative biomedical technologies being introduced.

If we could only have a system to support clinical and policy decision-making that:

  • was evidence-based;
  • had broad access to the expertise and experience of the best and the brightest researchers and clinicians;
  • was rapid and timely in its evaluation and communication of recommendations about procedures, drugs and devices;
  • was widely accepted and used by clinicians, patients and payors;
  • was publicly transparent and participatory;
  • developed comprehensive guidelines with up-to-date recommendations; 
  • provided worldwide access to the guidelines free of charge.

 

How would such a system be designed? Most likely, one should establish tumor-specific panels of experts representing the many disciplines involved in the complex management of these diseases. Formal meetings would be held on an annual basis to evaluate new scientific evidence, decisions of the FDA, and other important events (e.g., the halting of clinical trials for positive or negative reasons). In addition, the panels could be called upon on very short notice to meet by phone to discuss “late-breaking news.” The product of such a scientific, evaluative process would be comprehensive guidelines that address the continuum of care for patients in a very timely manner.

Clinicians might enthusiastically accept and even embrace such guidelines as the basis for their practice decisions. Patients could view the professional guidelines online and patient specific information derived from the guidelines would also be available online. Payors would base their coverage policies on the guideline recommendations. Further, payors would say to clinicians, “you don’t have to call us, if the guidelines recommend such an intervention, the intervention will be paid for.”  The hassle factor and inefficiency of the present cacophonous system might be reduced by such logical use of scientific guideline recommendations. Most importantly, the safety and effectiveness of care delivered to patients with cancer would be improved.

Ah, but who has time to develop and implement such a system when there are papers to write and panel discussions to participate in. Could this really ever work? It would be a huge task to develop and maintain. It would require the commitment, dedication and volunteerism of more than 1,000 expert clinicians. If it did work, would the health policy experts want to recognize that? Would anybody ever want to use it? It is a long shot, but let’s give it a try!

Actually, NCCN did and it works fully as described above! For a look at our solution, please visit (again) NCCN.org and click on NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines™)! 

(The views expressed in this Commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NCCN.)  
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