UPMC On Topic Transcript
Cancer Speciality Care Centers at UPMC Cancer Centers
David Bartlett, MD
Director, Cancer Specialty Care Centers
UPMC Cancer Centers and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute
The UPMC Cancer Specialty Care Centers is a really unique place where patients can come in and get streamlined, efficient care by a multidisciplinary team of experts that are offering cutting edge therapies that you really can’t get elsewhere.
A coordinated care approach
The nurse coordinator serves many functions everything from a kind of a concierge for the patient, walking the patient through the system to coordinating the variety of visits that, that need to be coordinated, and really kind of acts as the quarterback for that program.
Once you’ve made the contact with the Cancer Center it’s referred to the clinical coordinator, the nurse coordinator for that disease site. And that coordinator will call you on the phone, talk with you about your disease and then you know get an idea of what tests have been done and, and have everything sent in so we can review them ahead of time. And at that same time, provide an appointment. And that appointment is usually within a week of that call. And so between the time that you make that call and, and showing up at the office everything has been reviewed, and if there are other tests that need to be obtained those have already been thought about and at least either ordered or a call is made to, to get that scheduled. So then you come in, and when you come in to see the physicians you come into the office, you are seen by the physician’s assistant who kind of does the history and physical and looks at everything. And then you sit in the office while your case is being discussed, and then the physicians will come in and go through the recommendations at that point and discuss your case and, and educate you.
Expedited treatment plan helps to minimize anxiety
I recently received a referral of a patient from outside of UPMC who was diagnosed with cancer and was beginning to have symptoms. The physician felt like the scan wasn’t appropriate, ordered another scan, it took a couple of weeks to get that scan. Took another week to go back and see the physician to get the result. The physician felt like a biopsy was necessary, took a couple of weeks to get the biopsy, a week to get back into the physician’s office to get the biopsy results, was referred to a surgeon. It took a couple of weeks to get that appointment. And as you can see, this can drag on and on. And by the time the surgeon actually felt like this was not an appropriate care for him, and referred the patient to us, and 3 months had gone by from the time that that initial diagnosis was made. And so we had to workup because by that time the cancer had changed. So what we are trying to do is streamline that process so the patient can really embark on treatment as, as quickly as possible, and the anxiety that the patient has to go through with that diagnosis of cancer not knowing what the future holds, we move fast to stage the disease, diagnose the disease and embark on treatment.
For more information, contact us at 1-800-533-UPMC.