Oncology Practice Trends From the National Practice Benchmark (vol 10, pg 407, 2014)

We estimate that the survey participants in the National Practice Benchmark (NPB) make up approximately 7% of practicing hematology/oncology physicians in physician-owned businesses in the United States. By participating successfully in the NPB, these 7% demonstrate the ability and desire to actively measure, manage, and gain awareness of their environment. We examine the principal of self-organization of the oncology service delivery system and introduce three terms-resilience, adaptability, and transformability-as these have been expressed in the information provided by participants about their individual practices over the past 8 years of the NPB. Additionally, we discuss three aspects of resilience: latitude, resistance, and precariousness. Adaptability is the concept that is most directly expressed in the NPB. These concepts are relevant to the predictions of the 2013 survey results. These predictions include increasing drug expenditures but no increase in total revenue per physician and no increase in productivity. We will continue to see resilience and adaptability as we have in the past but look for an increase in transformed components of the delivery system.