Ali McBride provides an overview of the role of the pharmacist and the importance of working with a broad team of healthcare providers in managing patients on oral oncolytics.
That's an excellent question. Right now, I work with a team of advanced practitioners, physicians, healthcare providers, and also finance to actually obtain a drug therapy for patients looking at dose adjustments, and also looking at compliance, or adherence for certain type of therapies.
We actually have a multi‑factorial role with multi‑disciplinary based evaluations for patients on oral oncolytics at this point. We have multiple roles, would be a better word for this. Making sure the patient is actually getting the drug which oftentimes for any first dose drug in the oral oncolytic, some patients may not even pick up that prescription, or even work on that prescription for several weeks later.
They're not even starting that therapy until a later time point. We have difficulties there as well. In addition, we also make sure the patient is getting the drug therapy. Sometimes, finance is a barrier.
Out of pocket expense has become an issue. We have seen a lot of work in regards to oral chemotherapy parity in which we're making sure the patients can actually afford those copays. Based on estate base legislation issues at each state across the country is also a federal act that's still in the pipeline right now.
We have numerous types of focuses. It may depend on the patient, it may depend on the physician, and what they want as well, but the goal is to make sure the patient has access to therapies, and they're adherent to therapies to make sure they maximize their outcomes with their treatment.