Radiation oncologist aims to ‘galvanize change’ to improve patient experience
Since the beginning of her career, Fumiko Chino, MD, has rooted her work as a radiation oncologist in the patient experience, continually working to improve optimal care for those with cancer.
Based on this work, Chino, radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, received the Healio Patient Voice award at the inaugural Healio Disruptive Innovators in hematology/oncology reception. The award recognizes Chino’s efforts as a physician advocate to have productive public discussions with patients and patient groups, improve communication between patients and providers, and use physician and personal experience to push legislative or regulatory action.
She spoke to Healio about what it meant for her to win this award and to represent the “patient voice,” as well as the various ongoing research projects she has underway.
“Winning any award makes you pause and think about whether you truly deserve the accolade. I am so grateful to receive the award, especially because the recognition came from online voting of people who believed in the work I do to move the needle forward in patient outcomes. For that, I am grateful,” Chino said during an interview. “I am charged to continue this work in advancing patient-centered research to improve the status quo for all individuals with cancer. I certainly want to continue to be worthy of being named the patient voice in the future.”
Caregiver insight
It was her background as a caregiver for her husband who had cancer that allowed Chino the insight into the patient experience and gave her the research focus on affordability and costs.
“My experience allowed me to focus on projects that may be underappreciated by the classic research paradigm, such as examining out-of-pocket costs for customer parking or the burden that prior authorization places on a patient,” Chino said. “When I was working on the customer parking study, some researchers poked fun at it and said it was small. But it is not small for some patients; parking can be a real barrier and obstacle to their care.”
The idea that that is a barrier for some patients, Chino continued, is not well understood by some physicians.
“Unfortunately, I certainly understand it,” she said. “Being the patient voice is thinking about those maybe underappreciated perspectives and how I can make a difference. Many physicians work to improve the delivery of care, but they may not have the unique perspective on the other side of the stethoscope.”
Chino grew up with a mother who was an oncologist, which she said allowed her to witness that patient care takes priority.
“Some of my strongest childhood memories with my mom were when she was on call, and I would sometimes go into the hospital with her,” Chino said. “I learned firsthand that physicians make sacrifices to treat patients with cancer. The lesson for me wasn’t that my Sunday was interrupted by having to go to the hospital with my mom, because it meant that someone else’s Sunday was far worse because they were in the hospital with cancer. I realized at a young age that certain quality-of-life issues matter to patients and their families.”
Ongoing work
Chino is working on several ongoing patient-centered clinical research projects.
She and colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center created the Affordability Working Group, which aims to combat affordability issues faced by patients.
“Through this group, we are working to pilot initiatives within our cancer center to facilitate getting financial resources to our patients,” Chino said. “We also want to encourage physicians and other health care providers to have discussions about affordability and costs and try to streamline their knowledge in terms of why these discussions matter, why it may be underappreciated and why it might be a silent toxicity for some patients.”
Another research project is aiming to overcome the burden of prior authorization requirements for patients.
“Much of the research for prior authorization in the cancer space has looked at this huge burden on providers and the overall health care system, but it has not been looked at from the patient’s perspective,” Chino said. “I wanted to examine how this burden affects our patients, and we are recruiting for this study now.”
Yet another recent study is examining the additive financial burdens of COVID-19 on young adults with cancer.
“Accrual for this study just closed, and we are currently conducting qualitative analysis looking at the patient experience of cost burden, with the goal of identifying potential interventions and solutions,” Chino said.
“As physicians, we should always be geared toward improving things for our patients,” she added. “We need to galvanize change for the future and ensure that what happened to my husband, in terms of cost for his cancer, and what continues to happen to so many of our patients, is less likely to occur in the future. My next steps will always be to try and improve the future for the next person to walk through my door.”
For more information:
Fumiko Chino, MD, can be reached at chinof@mskcc.org.
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