Preventing over treatment through smart health technologies
The cost of cancer care in the U.S. was $125 billion in 2010 and is projected to increase to $175 billion by 2020. Total spending on cancer care is driven by the cost to treat an individual patient and the number of patients treated. For example, sipuleucel-T, a novel immuno- therapy for metastatic prostate cancer, was found to improve survival by several months in a population of patients with few proven options. However, its cost was more than $100,000 per patient for a three-dose course of treatment. While, regulatory reform and preclinical innovations have the potential reduce the high cost of developing cancer therapies, there is an urgent need for innovative strategies that will allow the cancer patient to pay less and expect more within the cancer care continuum. A combination of innovative health care delivery models and technologies are needed to overhaul the unwieldy costs of cancer care in the 21st century. Two key drivers that increase the use of cancer therapeutics is under utilization and/or limited access to cancer prevention and overutilization of treatment owing to a lack of insight into who will benefit least and most likely from treatment.
