Dr. Peter Yu was recently named the first physician in chief of the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute. Dr. Yu, a medical oncologist and hematologist from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in California, is a nationally recognized cancer expert.
Q: FIRST, TELL US ABOUT YOUR VISION FOR THE HARTFORD HEALTHCARE CANCER INSTITUTE?
A: The Hartford Healthcare Cancer Institute can and should aspire to advance cancer research and patient care for the benefit of cancer patients, their families and the community at large. And there are two reasons why we need a new vision to deliver on this. The scientific advances in immunology, genomics and computational medicine are unprecedented and are changing how we treat patients. At the same time the cost of new diagnostics and therapeutics is unsustainable at our current trajectory. For the Cancer Institute and, in fact, our nation, this is the challenge to delivering 21st century cancer care.
Q: THE HARTFORD HEALTHCARE CANCER INSTITUTE HAS A UNIQUE PARTNERSHIP WITH MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING. TELL US HOW YOU WILL ADVANCE THAT RELATIONSHIP.
A: Memorial Sloan Kettering shares the same vision as the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute and this vision underlies the partnership. Memorial Sloan Kettering and Hartford both realized that we could accomplish our objectives faster by bringing together one of the world’s leading research center with an innovative healthcare delivery system. To that end, our cancer doctors, nurses and staff work collaboratively with corresponding teams of providers at Memorial to assure that the same care and choices are available to our patients.
Last month I had the opportunity to meet with Vice President Biden regarding the Cancer Moonshot initiative he is leading. The partnership between Hartford HealthCare and Memorial Sloan Kettering is exactly the type of effort he is looking for that will bring down barriers, build collaboration and double the pace of advances in cancer care.
Q: GIVEN YOUR EXPERTISE IN USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE PATIENT CARE . . . ARE WE ANY CLOSER TO CONSOLIDATING DATA FROM MASSIVE BANKS OF INFORMATION INTO CLINICAL PRACTICES?
A. We come closer by broadening our understanding of where that information resides and agreeing to share our data. Hartford HealthCare is re-engineering its information systems to allow us to search our own databanks and perform rapid and highly customizable data analytics. However, there are other data repositories that we need access to that will allow us to better measure outcomes and cost of healthcare. In particular, insurance payers’ data and the Connecticut Department of Health Cancer Registry are rich data repositories. I am looking forward to conversations of this sort as I become a part of this community.