Ensuring the Safety of Public Health with Technology

By Jonathan S. Berek, MD, MMS
Editor, ASCO News & Forum

As an early adopter of new technologies I see the value in having a pocket-sized device that enables me to keep in touch with colleagues, family, and friends all at the same time. I can look up the latest online issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology and get up-to-the-minute content about regulatory changes that can affect my oncology practice, read travel logistics, or look at a recently uploaded picture of my granddaughter. My handheld device saves me time and offers me many of the conveniences I didn’t have as recently as five years ago. But what this technology can be used for—improving patient care—is why it is so important for members of the oncology community also to become early adopters. New technologies in the form of electronic health records (EHR) are enhancing the way patients are treated by enabling oncologists and medical professionals to spend more time with the patient and less time looking up information in paper-based files. Information about a patient’s medical history can be right at one’s fingertips. Results from a blood test on one floor of a hospital can be input into a networked computer system that hospital staff elsewhere can review within the hour. Electronic systems for prescribing chemotherapy treatments have decreased fatal dosing errors once made by the misinterpretation of handwritten prescriptions. These dosing systems are designed to decrease the type and frequency of chemotherapy administration errors and perform safety checks regarding allergies, drug-to-drug interactions, contraindications, significant weight changes, appropriate dosing, and lab values. Some types of chemotherapy regimens themselves have undergone significant changes. In some cases, they’ve enabled patients to “go wireless,” by taking a pill instead of having the treatment administered through an IV drip. It is very exciting to be on the forefront of these changes in oncology. The U.S. government is also helping medical professionals to become more technologically savvy to the benefit of patients. In May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an initiative to monitor product safety, based on recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine’s report on ways to improve the safe use of drugs. The Sentinel System—a national electronic system that helps the FDA to perform searches on EHR systems and medical claims databases—will help to ensure safety of patients by tracking how medications and medical products perform in clinical settings. This exciting use of technology benefits both patients and physicians—anyone who comes into contact with the products that Sentinel tracks. Science and safety go hand in hand. Both require strict adherence to rules and regulations that practitioners must follow to get good results, which ultimately affect the way oncologists make decisions in their daily practices. The science of safety begins with technologic improvements made to ensure that patients are obtaining the highest possible level of care. This issue of ASCO News & Forum highlights some of the products and services that ASCO has developed to enhance the day-to-day working life of oncologists, from creating and hosting EHR Labs during the Annual Meeting to the publication of an EHR Field Guide that helps oncologists select a vendor and implement electronic records into their practices. ASCO is moving forward into the digital age to provide the most current scientific information online for oncologists while enhancing the patient experience with improved tools and services. ASCO’s Virtual Meeting has been a valuable tool for people to review Annual Meeting and thematic meeting sessions that they attended, or were unable to attend, and the addition of podcasts now allows oncologists to take the information with them in a new, even more portable format. In this issue we also report on the Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid™ (caBIG™) Annual Meeting that took place in Washington, DC. This exciting initiative is designed to improve data sharing and collaboration among medical professionals, which can result in more improved outcomes for patients, which, ultimately is our goal.