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Dr. Cheryl Matter shares expert insights into the role physician education can play in ensuring innovative tools reach patients, thereby improving outcomes across various disease states.

“What are physicians’ beliefs about treatment intensification (TI) in metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC), and what explains the gap between guidelines and clinical practice?” This was the central question posed by a recent study published in JAMA. After surveying 107 US-based physicians, the research team found that nearly 70% of adult patients with mCSPC did not receive first-line TI, and physicians who reported choosing treatment based on clinical guidelines were significantly more likely to prescribe TI. This led the authors to suggest that “…physician education on treatment guidelines, efficacy and safety data, and appropriate prostate-specific antigen goals may increase first-line TI use in mCSPC and may improve survival outcomes.” 

Physician Education Beyond Guidelines

If physician education can improve adherence to standard-of-care guidelines, could it also boost the adoption of innovative tools that further improve survival outcomes? Cheryl Matter, PhD, a physician educator at Avenda Health, believes the answer is a definitive yes. 

Physician’s Weekly (PW) spoke with Dr. Matter to gain insights into the role physician education can play in ensuring innovative tools reach patients, thereby improving outcomes across various disease states.

PW: Were you surprised by the study findings?

Dr. Matter: Not overly surprised. The more I work with physicians, the more I understand the pressure they’re under and the various ways they’re being pulled while managing aspects of patient care. One consistent thing is the demands on their time. In a 20-minute meeting, they might get interrupted by their team 10 times It’s hard for them to stay up-to-date with everything going on in the field because of the avalanche of information coming at them, but also to focus time on reading through this dense material, digesting it, and more importantly, determining how to apply it in their own practice.

What strategies help physicians engage with Unfold AI, the Avenda Health AI-based prostate cancer decision support platform?

There’s no magic bullet, but being clear and efficient helps. I provide the most critical information upfront and let them dig deeper when they have time. Relevance and impact are key—they need to understand why it matters.

What are your best practices for physician education?

Identify routine times, tools, and modalities that enable physicians to access information easily. Many physicians carve out time for meetings with collaborators, but unfortunately, that’s not an option for everybody. Many organizations are making this type of information accessible through initiatives like grand rounds. Ultimately, it’s about finding a way to make the delivery of education to physicians consistent, and about physicians regularly dedicating time to educational updates within their clinical practice.

Should healthcare administration play a larger role in supporting physician education?

Certainly, it would be great if they could create more flexibility and time for physicians, but having worked with many of them and having been part of the administration in a provider organization, I can also appreciate the challenges that exist on the other side. In the end, everybody must work together to keep patient care quality at the center, and I do believe all the doctors and teams I’ve worked with really do care about that.

Do you educate individual physicians or full care teams?

We work with the whole team. It’s great when the physician we’re working with as a partner helps create that connection with the team and establishes the priorities so everybody’s on the same page. It’s exciting for me to be part of a team that’s bringing forward a technology that can help improve the efficiency, quality, and outcomes of patient care. I feel fortunate to be able to work with people who have dedicated so much of their lives to caring for patients, oftentimes in one of their darkest moments, during a cancer diagnosis.

Are there other prostate cancer tools you wish more physicians would learn about and adopt?

There’s a lot of exciting leveraging of technology and data. One that’s interesting to me but not technically new is fusion biopsy. We are finally seeing broad adoption that has taken a very long time due to several factors beyond physician education, but I think it’s going to drive the next level of treatment in prostate cancer care.