EP254: How to Achieve Outcomes That Matter to Patients, With Nadine Jackson McCleary, MD, MPH, BSN
Episode Description
In this episode, Stacey Richter talks with Nadine Jackson McCleary, MD, MPH, BSN, oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, about how to achieve outcomes that matter to patients.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✅ Why patient-reported outcomes (PROs) matter as much as evidence-based medicine, especially in oncology
✅ Why only about half of patient outcomes are currently being reported by physicians
✅ How collecting and acting on patient-reported symptoms measurably improves survival and quality of life
✅ What Dana-Farber does day to day to collect and act on patient-reported symptoms like insomnia
✅ The cultural shift and barriers involved in making PRO collection standard practice
WHY THIS MATTERS
Nadine Jackson McCleary makes the case that evidence-based medicine alone isn't enough — what patients and doctors actually want at the point of care is medicine-based evidence, i.e., patient-reported outcomes. At Dana-Farber, collecting and acting on these symptoms, like insomnia, has been shown to meaningfully improve survival and quality of life, yet only about half of outcomes get reported today. McCleary walks through the cultural and practical barriers to closing that gap, and warns of a growing inequity in how big data gets leveraged across cancer care.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
=== LINKS ===
🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page
🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms
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00:00 Introduction.
03:43 What percentage of patient outcomes are being reported?
04:16 Why only about 50% of outcomes are being reported by the physician.
06:35 Why reporting patient outcomes really does matter.
08:12 How survival and quality of life are significantly improved by patients who report on their symptoms.
08:57 The delta between wanting to collect patient outcomes and actually collecting those patient outcomes.
10:21 What Dana-Farber is actually doing when interacting with patients.
12:14 How long does it take to collect these patient-reported symptoms?
13:42 The cultural shift required to make this change at Dana-Farber.
14:26 How Dana-Farber is working toward using this data collection for population health management.
15:56 How Dana-Farber is improving one of the most reported patient symptoms: insomnia.
17:00 How collecting patient-reported symptoms and using health technology for this is actually eliminating tasks on the provider's plate.
17:51 EP233 with Glenn Sabin.
19:03 How the patients feel about reporting their symptoms.
19:50 Barriers that Dana-Farber has had to overcome in incorporating these patient-reported symptom practices.
21:07 "The evidence is there, the support is there … but we still don't have a clear how."
22:20 "There is … a growing inequity in how big data is leveraged."
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