Rome, April 13 (beraking latest news Salute) – The first procurement agreement in Italy based on value in the treatment of chronic pain for cancer patients has been signed between Medtronic, a company specializing in medical technologies, and the IRCCS European Institute of Oncology in Milan. This is the first example in our country of a risk-sharing program in the treatment of cancer patients who have developed chronic pain following the surgical or pharmacological treatment of this pathology that affects over 377,000 people every year in Italy.
A first step that contributes to the transformation towards value-based healthcare, placing the patient and their needs at the center – reads a note – in a healthcare system that today pays for volumes of services, with one of the reference centers for management of cancer patients such as the Ieo which has always equipped itself with cutting-edge technologies and which is one of the European reference centers in the treatment of cancer patients. Thanks to the Value Based procurement agreement, Medtronic shares with the Ieo – the note explains – the risk in cases where therapies for the treatment of chronic post-surgical pain of cancer patients may not lead to achieving the expected results.
This will be possible thanks to the collection and certification of the results of the procedure. In particular, by verifying the results obtained in the area of pain management through proven indicators on the pain scale and quality of life within six months of implantation.
In particular, there are two devices that Medtronic makes available for the treatment of post surgical pain and / or post chemotherapy or radiotherapy: the Intellis * technology (electrical neuromodulation) or the Synchromed * II system (pharmacological neuromodulation). The Intellis platform is a neurostimulation system for the treatment of chronic intractable pain in the trunk and / or limbs that includes an implantable medullary stimulator, the smallest in the world, equipped with advanced monitoring features for personalized analgesic therapy. Synchromed is an implantable infusion pump that delivers very small doses of analgesic medication via an implanted catheter into the intrathecal space, an area surrounding the spinal cord filled with cerebrospinal fluid.
“This agreement represents a further step towards the evolution of models based on clinical outcome – comments Guido Beccagutti, Medtronic Value & Access Director Western Europe -. This is the first agreement in the field of chronic pain, which follows the other experiences. gained on the topic in the cardiovascular and electrostimulation fields. We are in fact replicating a new model in the medical device market in which the company shares direct responsibility for costs and outcomes with the providers, configuring an ecosystem that focuses on outcome and improvement of the patient’s quality of life and which aims to offer better and sustainable care for the system “.
“This is a new purchasing model that evaluates not only the quality of the medical device, but also the effective value of the therapy in clinical practice”, explains Emanuela Omodeo Salé, director of the Ieo hospital pharmacy SC.
“This new model – explains Omodeo Salè – is applied for the first time in Italy in the field of cancer pain with our center and provides for the availability of the device supplier to reimburse it in cases of ineffectiveness. We pharmacists are used to apply this purchasing model to oncological drugs through the use of monitoring registers that make treatments accessible in a homogeneous way throughout the national territory. The register therefore represents – he emphasizes – a valid tool for the pharmacist who is the guarantor of prescriptive appropriateness and the economic sustainability of the treatments, through close collaboration with the clinician and the information collected from the registers are important reservoirs of post-authorization data in real clinical practice “.
“Therefore, applying this model also to the world of technologically advanced devices – he concludes – could guarantee the best care for everyone, always with an eye to the concept of sustainability also linked to the intrinsic value of technology“.
“The evaluation of clinical outcomes, especially in pain therapy, is an essential step – explains Vittorio Guardamagna, Director of Palliative Care and Ieo Pain Therapy – to give the right value to high-impact and high-tech therapies, such as neurostimulation. Patients suffering from oncological disease unfortunately live the experience of pain throughout the disease, from diagnosis, to the period of treatments, until healing or ‘chronicization’. Fortunately today, healing or ‘chronicization’ are more and more possible – he observes – thanks to the development of new therapeutic strategies: today we are talking about over 4 million patients and it is estimated that in about 40% there is the presence of neuropathic pain, which is not always easy to control with analgesic drugs alone. – he concludes – it can have the right place within the therapeutic path of patients “.