Becker's Oncology Virtual Forum: 4 Questions with Ifeyinwa Osunkwo, Director, Sickle Cell Disease Enterprise and Professor of Medicine at Levine Cancer Institute for Atrium Health

Ifeyinwa Osunkwo, MD, MPH, serves as Director, Sickle Cell Disease Enterprise and Professor of Medicine at Levine Cancer Institute for Atrium Health.

On August 25th, Dr. Osunkwo will speak at Becker's Hospital Review Oncology Virtual Forum. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the virtual event, which will take place on August 25, 2020.

To learn more about the conference and Dr. Osunkwo's session, click here.

Question: What is the No. 1 concern you have for your practice amid the pandemic?

Ifeyinwa Osunkwo: Access to care, access to care, access to care - when sick and when well. Our concern is how do patients reach us? How do we reach them? How do we cascade to our patients all the wonderful information we have put together for optimizing patient care at Atrium to the end-user? What virtual platforms do we use? How do patients access these platforms and how do they actually do a virtual visit? How do we handle their emotional health in a pandemic and how do we support the clinical team from burnout? Initially, we were worried about the loss of funding/$$ from having to shut down clinical services however, the health and wellness of the patients and the care team rose to the top, above finances. Will patients know what to do when they get sick? Will they know where to go and who to call if they get sick or develop a new complication of their disease? Are we communicating with them effectively all the rapid changes that are happening to what the new “normal” is? How do we keep them safe while they get life curing therapies that also are immune compromising? What happens if they get COVID-19? The Levine Cancer Institute (LCI) has deployed navigators to help support ALL patients with blood disorders and cancer who develop COVID-19 as an extra layer of support to address the nuances of their care along with the regular medical team.

Q: How have your priorities changed since the pandemic began?

IO: Our program priorities have always been to provide “proactive rather than reactive care” and with the COVID-19 pandemic this was reinforced 10000%. We launched weekly zoom patient engagement and education sessions, to proactively reach out to and reassure our patients. We called EVERYONE on our patient panel list and tried to update their emails, contact information including emergency contacts. Now we do these zoom calls titled “Patient Engagement and Education Program” aka P2EP or PEEPs every 2 weeks. These sessions provide up to date information and education to our vulnerable patients while providing a platform for them to see on camera their care team and also be seen as an individual and not just a patient. They are very interactive and we have had upwards of 45 to 100+ attendees on these sessions. Our health educator calls patients and proactively works with them to get them signed up for our patient portal so that they learn how to communicate with the care team. These interventions have helped dramatically improve access to virtual care and reduced significantly our “no-show” rates with increased bidirectional communication between patients and the clinical team. There are still some challenges though with our rapid deployment of virtual care during this pandemic – wrong contact info, poor Wi-Fi access, etc. However, there are also many benefits: we can see the patient more frequently; we can do a lot of interventions without a physical exam and we are better able to protect both our patients and the care team from COVID-19

Q: Where are the biggest opportunities in cancer care in 2020 and beyond?

IO: Leveraging the use of telehealth to provide cancer (and hematology care) eg infusions at home, assessments and lab draws at home, clinical trials at home, etc. second opinion consultations reducing the burden on the patient who is dealing with a life-threatening disease are several opportunities that will continue to evolve beyond 2020

Q: What is the most exciting clinical innovation in cancer care today?

IO:

I am most excited about the evolving field of precision medicine that is exploding; personalized cell-directed therapy, gene therapy to cure malignant and nonmalignant conditions is emerging as the best innovations in cancer and hematology care today. For sickle cell disease a genetic blood disorder, we can now genetically fix the single gene defect that causes the disorder and cure the disease – 60 minutes broadcast from last Sunday eloquently described this novel treatment.

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