Cancer researchers and oncologists are encouraged by the explosion in biomarker-related data and research that point to effective, targeted and evidence-based therapies. For lung cancer specifically, we have a remarkable amount of biomarkers.
Since personalized biomarker-directed therapies have significant potential to effectively treat cancers, providers are eager to maximize massive data sets that exist within electronic health records (EHRs) in order to advance the quality and efficiency of care.
To that end, data experts and oncologists are maximizing the work and research of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) and others to make this data quickly actionable for patients with cancer. Tools such as our Clear Value PlusSM regimen support technology are helping in this effort.
Helping providers keep up to date on clinical practice guidelines
For non-small cell lung cancer, for example, NCCN recently released important clinical treatment guidelines involving three new biomarkers: RET, MET and NTRK. To improve patient outcomes, NCCN recommends that oncologists be familiar with these most current biomarker guidelines.
Given the explosion in data, “impossible” is how practitioners describe that effort—without the right tool, that is. In 2020 alone, NCCN and other organizations published more than 70 guideline updates. These and other releases account for thousands of pages each year detailing the biomarkers, risks, treatments and other nuanced information.
Besides keeping up to date with such breakthroughs, another challenge for practitioners is to know about and provide the right biomarker testing and the right therapy to the right patients at the right time. This means having the latest biomarker evidence at hand.
A robust, interactive application like Clear Value Plus meets these challenges, and our full-time team of specialists is constantly creating and updating Clear Value Plus for oncologists to use at the point of need. The team utilizes guidelines from NCCN and other partners and makes them actionable within the patient’s EHR through a step-by-step resource.
The team reviews NCCN recommendations prior to their release and creates a decision tree to assist oncologists with choosing the latest evidence-based treatment options. The algorithm intelligently prompts providers for relevant molecular results based on NCCN guidelines.
Biomarker-directed healthcare
With this information readily available—as part of the EHR, in real time and at the point of need within the normal workflow—oncologists no longer need to circle back to a patient with a treatment plan after doing additional research or after consulting another (or several) databases. This provides an opportunity for shared decision making between patient and provider in real time. The regularly updated data also helps avoid the need for a later discussion with the patient about a “new” treatment option after a treatment decision has been made or even after treatment has begun.
Given the advantages that biomarker-directed care offers patients, we update Clear Value Plus and the decision trees regularly— on average, Clear Value Plus content is updated 6.2 times per month. This means oncologists can rely on Clear Value Plus to maintain the latest evidence within the quickly changing landscape of cancer biomarkers and cancer care.
With a robust product like Clear Value Plus, oncologists can keep up with the latest guideline-based treatment options for their patients—a task they say would be "impossible" otherwise.