Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Different Takes: Advances In Induced Proximity Look Promising; Covid Changed Home Health Care
Stat: Induced Proximity Opens New Ways To Treat 'Undruggable Diseases'
So-called undruggable proteins — those that supposedly can’t be targeted by pharmaceuticals — represent a big barrier in discovering new drugs for complex diseases like cancer, autoimmune disorders, and others that continue to be major causes of disability and death. As someone who has spent decades in academic research and more recently in the biotech industry, I’m betting that the biopharmaceutical research community will overcome this problem to treat, and potentially cure, these and other diseases. (Raymond Deshaies, 5/12)
Modern Healthcare: How COVID-19 Accelerated The Move To Home Healthcare
Urgency has been the defining condition of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overnight, home healthcare workers became the front-line force for COVID patients as hospitals, long-term care facilities and skilled-nursing facilities were devastated by the virus. More than 130,000 LTC residents died of COVID-19 and occupancy rates dropped to historic lows. Any way to keep patients home became the go-to medical order, and it required home healthcare companies to respond with a level of coordination and clinical sophistication that the severity of the public health crisis demanded. (Jennifer Southwell, 5/11)
Stat: Pharma Needs To Measure Patient Experience From Patients' Perspectives
The relationship between clinical outcomes and the patient experience — the sum of all of interactions of an individual related to managing his or her health — has long been established and documented. Yet many elements that are typically described as having an impact on overall experience are related to quality of care and the patient-physician relationship, things largely outside the control of pharmaceutical companies. So how do pharma programs, which can include patient support services, direct-to-consumer advertising, and collaborations with patient advocacy groups, among other things, contribute to the patient experience? (Hensley Evans and Sharon Suchotliff, 5/10)
