Wellstar Health System, one of Georgia’s largest and most integrated healthcare systems, announced that the Wellstar Cancer Network was recently recognized nationally as a cancer treatment leader. Honored with an Outstanding Achievement Award from the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer and designated as a Care Continuum Center of Excellence by the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, the Wellstar Cancer Network continues to pioneer innovative cancer treatments and technologies to improve outcomes and quality of life for patients.
“Wellstar Health System is dedicated to providing patients with the highest quality of compassionate and personalized care,” said Dr. Michael Andrews, Chief Cancer Officer of the Wellstar Cancer Network. “We are extremely proud of the Wellstar Cancer Network and our team of highly skilled physicians, nurses and oncology support services who excel at treating the spectrum of cancer illnesses with the most advanced, patient-centric technologies and treatments. We are focused on enhancing the health and well-being of everyone we serve, with a commitment to delivering world-class cancer care.”
Wellstar earned an Outstanding Achievement Award for the third consecutive cycle from the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC). The highest honor in the United States awarded to a cancer program, the Wellstar Cancer Network was recognized for achieving excellence in providing care to cancer patients. Award recipients must have received commendation ratings in all seven commendation standards and receive a compliance rating for each of the 27 remaining cancer program standards.
Wellstar Recognized as Cancer Treatment Leader
Published on October 12, 2020
Last updated 02:04 PM October 16, 2020
Wellstar Cancer Care Receives National Recognition with Outstanding Achievement Award, Designated as Care Continuum Center of Excellence for Lung Cancer
The purpose of the award is to raise the bar on quality cancer care, with the ultimate goal of increasing awareness about quality care choices among cancer patients and their loved ones. In addition, the award is intended to:
- Recognize those cancer programs that achieve excellence in providing quality care to cancer patients.
- Motivate other cancer programs to work toward improving their level of care.
- Facilitate dialogue between award recipients and health care professionals at other cancer facilities for the purpose of sharing best practices.
- Encourage honorees to serve as quality care resources to other cancer programs.
“More and more, we’re finding that patients and their families want to know how the health care institutions in their communities compare with one another,” said Lawrence N. Shulman, MD, MACP, chair of the CoC. “They want access to information in terms of who’s providing the best quality of care, and they want to know about overall patient outcomes. Through this recognition program, I’d like to think we’re playing a small but vital role in helping them make informed decisions on their cancer care.”
Wellstar was also recognized by the Care Continuum Centers of Excellence (CCCOE), a program of the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer which identifies community hospitals that meet rigorous qualifying criteria and demonstrate collaborative leadership across the lung cancer care continuum. GO2 Foundation formed the Care Continuum Centers of Excellence program to enable patient access to standard of care lung cancer screening, early detection, diagnosis, treatment and survivorship in their local community. Meeting the CCCOE criteria puts member hospitals on par with leading academic and research institutions and provides patients with access to the latest innovations not typically found in community hospitals. The CCCOE program promotes a standard of compassionate and timely care excellence with, as well as treatment options that improve survivorship.
“We are proud and honored to be working with Wellstar Health System as a GO2 Foundation Care Continuum Center of Excellence. Their commitment will help save lives and improve long-term survivorship by giving patients access to high-quality, multidisciplinary care closer to home. They are the example to follow,” says Laurie Fenton Ambrose, co-founder, president and CEO of GO2 Foundation.
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Highlights
One-Stop Treatment Clinic for Patients with Thoracic Cancer
If you had to guess which cancer took the most lives in America, what would your guess be?
“Lung cancer is the No. 1 cancer killer in the U.S. for both women and men since 1986,” said Dr. Daniel Miller. Dr. Miller is the chief of thoracic surgery and the director of the Wellstar Georgia Cancer Center lung cancer screening program.
About 80% of lung cancer cases are associated with cigarette smoking, including secondhand smoke. Unfortunately, when symptoms begin showing, the cancer has already spread, making treatment very time-sensitive. When a patient is diagnosed, their care team typically includes not just one, but four doctors: a thoracic surgeon, an interventional pulmonologist, a medical oncologist and a radiation oncologist. There are many benefits to having a large care team, but a huge drawback can be the wait time between appointments with each doctor.
“When you have cancer, you want to be seen now and be treated now,” Dr. Miller said.
The speed of treatment time for patients is what inspired the creation of the Thoracic-Oncology NOW (New Oncology Workgroup) Clinic at Wellstar Georgia Cancer Center. The multidisciplinary clinic is staffed by specialized physicians in the treatment of thoracic malignancies.
The clinic treats not just lung cancer, but also esophageal cancer, metastatic disease to the lungs and malignant pleural effusions.
“You’re cutting back on treatment time, waiting time, travel time and, more importantly, you have a group of doctors, rather than a doctor, who are talking about your care,” said Hematologist and Oncologist Dr. Girinda Raval.
The clinic operates on Wednesdays and acts as a one-stop shop for patients, saving their time and the time of their loved ones who join them for treatments. Patients also have access to Wellstar Georgia Cancer Center’s registered dietitians and social workers, along with a scheduler, financial personnel and medical assistants, creating one large care team ready to help them on their treatment journey.
“There is a degree of reassurance for the patient that there is a team who are all engrossed in caring for that patient,” Dr. Raval said.
To learn more about the Thoracic-Oncology NOW Clinic or make an appointment, call (706) 721-6744 for more information.
PeopleCare
KathyCare
Kathy DeJoseph delights in making and giving away thousands of soft and cheerful hats to Wellstar cancer patients through a nonprofit she founded called Happy Caps. It’s all in the name of bringing a little light and comfort to people during a hard time.
Where did the idea come from? It started with Kathy’s own lung cancer diagnosis.
A commitment to yearly lung cancer screening
A cancer survivor for more than a decade, Kathy said regular lung cancer screenings were the key to her survival. With a long history of smoking and growing up around relatives who smoked, she decided to join an early detection lung cancer study at Wellstar.
Even though she felt fine and had no symptoms, committing to the study meant having an annual low-dose CT scan every year. After several years of clean scans with no signs of lung cancer, Kathy told a nurse that she was going to quit. But the nurse persuaded her to come in for another screening.
“Thank goodness she did,” Kathy said. “I was diagnosed the very next day.”
Quick and efficient treatment at the STAT Clinic
Being a part of the study and getting screened early allowed Kathy to move immediately to Wellstar Lung Cancer STAT Clinic at Wellstar Kennestone Regional Medical Center.
STAT stands for Specialty Teams and Treatment, highlighting the collaboration of multiple cancer experts. Together, they come to a consensus on a treatment plan and meet with the patient on the same day. This puts the patients at the center of their care plan, allowing them and their families to get immediate answers to questions, make decisions and start treatment faster.
“The biggest benefit for me with the way the STAT Clinic works is that I didn’t have to worry about whether the doctors had actually talked to each other,” Kathy said. “They’d come in one after another and tell me what they thought from their expertise.”
Immediate communication and mutual agreement among medical experts mean treatment plans are established and started faster, which is proven to improve long-term survival. On average, it takes 60 to 90 days from the time of diagnosis to treatment in the U.S. With the STAT Clinic at Wellstar, patients go from diagnosis to treatment in 14 to 20 days.
Kathy’s treatment started quickly—she had a lung biopsy the day after her STAT Clinic appointment and started chemotherapy a week later.
“I wasn’t as terrified for as long as most people are because I had answers within a short period of time,” Kathy remembered.
She had surgery once she completed chemotherapy. Throughout the process, she had the support of an entire cancer team, including a medical oncologist, a lung cancer surgeon, a pulmonologist and a nurse navigator.