Dr. Pecora on Oncology Care Model Innovations

Andrew L. Pecora, MD, president of the Physician Services Division and chief innovation officer at Hackensack Meridian Health, discusses the Oncology Care Model (OCM) and other aspects of healthcare reform.

He describes the OCM as an innovation that represents a step along the way to ideal healthcare reform. The OCM doesn’t answer all of the questions that need to be answered; it’s looking at a narrow segment of care that includes cutting down on unnecessary emergency department visits and making sure that patients get appropriate and timely end-of-life care and counseling.

That said, the OCM is the departure point to a better healthcare model that will be refined over time. There will be improvements through the OCM that provide for better healthcare management options for patients, Pecora says, but many of the deeper complexities of handling cancer will have to be solved with additional measures that go beyond the OCM.