Variations in Care

Care Coordination: The Role of Pharmacy to Help Manage Patients with Cancer on Oral Oncolytics

Oral anti-cancer therapies transformed the way in which care is provided to patients. When oral agents are equally efficacious as parenteral treatments given in infusion centers and other healthcare settings, most patients with cancer prefer oral agents because they can be taken at home.Because oral anti-cancer agents are most often administered outside of the clinic, it takes a multidisciplinary team to successfully manage these patients and their treatments.

In the publication “Care Coordination: The Role of Pharmacy to Help Manage Patients with Cancer on Oral Oncolytics,” we offer results from a national survey, effective practices to better manage oral anti-cancer medication dispensing and improve patient outcomes, and practice profiles of four cancer programs and their dispensing models:

• Billings Clinic Cancer Center, a comprehensive community cancer program with its own specialty pharmacy in Billings, Montana.
• Franciscan Health Cancer Center Indianapolis, a comprehensive community cancer program without its own specialty pharmacy.
• Kellogg Cancer Center, an academic comprehensive cancer program with its own specialty pharmacy in Illinois.
• Norton Cancer Institute, an integrated network program with a specialty pharmacy in Louisville, Kentucky.