Chapters Transcript Video Multidisciplinary Care in a Comprehensive Thoracic Program Raffaelle J. Marchigiani, M.D., discusses the programs that the Sentara Cancer Network offers to provide early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. here at the Center Abroad Cancer Center, we offer what's called low dose CT screening for those high risk populations within lung cancer. On what that does it is allows for patients between roughly 15 80 years of age who have a history of smoking who have quit within the last 15 years, are currently quitting or currently have quit within last 15 years, and we offer them a low dose CT screening. And what that means is they would present to any facility within Santero. They have their CT screening done. Whoever ordered that scan it gets readily sent to that physician or a nurse practitioner or P a. Whoever ordered it, it's reviewed. And then what happens is if there are significant findings. It is then sent to one of our nurse navigators, who then feeds them into the thoracic surgery system very quickly. And that could mean a pulmonologist. It could mean a thoracic surgeon. It just really depends on who is first available. Who was the quickest to get you the care you need. So here at the Broad Cancer Center we did, we do have that in place. Aziz well is what's called a thorough ASIC fast track clinic. And what that essentially means is we have spots, usually every week or every other week, available on Mondays for those patients who need to be fed and very quickly and get their care established and get moving forward. Um, eso as faras, the low dose CT screening and the fast tractor at the clinic. We do have a set algorithm in place, and what that does is it speeds up the process in which the patients being seen. So once a CT scan is done, it's sent to whoever ordered it. At that point, it's also sent to a nurse navigator. The nurse navigator then reaches out to the provider who ordered the scan and asks if they would like this patient to be forwarded to a fast track Jurassic Clinic within seven business days. Majority the time they do say yes, and we have that done right away. And so the nurse navigator then facilitates them to get into the next available clinic, whether it be the fast track, the Raster clinic or pulmonologist clinic at another site, Um, it's really irrelevant. The goal is to get them in a soon as possible and then once that nurse never gonna make that appointment, they're there to follow up with that patient until they get to their appointment. And then they follow him every step of the way until they either get a diagnosis or getting treatment or found that it's benign. And they go back into the screening pot. In the case that a primary physician or order physician ordered provider does not want that than what she does is or he or she the nurse navigator, what they do is they follow with the PCP within a few days of of initially contacted to make sure that there's a plan in place for that patient. Now what this does for patient timeliness and and care is that because we have a plan in place to move patients through quickly, and we have available clinics to be seen very, very quickly, it's helped to move patients through the system quicker. So time of identification with suspicious nodule to biopsy to treatment has significantly improved since I first came here four years ago. So this is something we haven't placed right now on DWI. Are working very hard to maintain, um um, this process moving forward another aspect of care we have here. Aside from the low dose CT screening in the Thora CIC track clinic, etcetera is we have multidisciplinary care, and what that really means is instead of just seeing a surgeon or a pulmonologist or a radiation oncologist oncologist, we have the ability to take thes more difficult cases and present them in front of the entire board. And we call it the Tumor Board, the Thoracic Tumor Board. We have two of those. Currently one is that Norfolk General on DAT is with the other thoracic group in the system, and then another one is the home is that Princess Anne and that facilitates physicians from Princess and Centrally, a zealous care plex hospital. There is a third that's it called the General Tumor Board, but they also have thoracic surgeon of pulmonologist at Virginia Beach. So essentially we have three ways of presenting cases and to expedite care and get the consensus of a group. And that group is a drastic surgeon, a pulmonologist, a radiation oncologist in Oncologist. We have our nurse Navigators president, so we have a plethora of physicians and nurse practitioners and providers who are there to help give their opinion on a more difficult case, which not only helps to improve care but also helps to give a patient MAWR options. If we could go there and say, Here's what I'm dealing with, what can we do? We sometimes walk away with more than just one option, more option than we would have thought about just by ourselves. So with those with those those conferences in place, I think it improves carry dramatically. Published February 9, 2021 Created by Related Presenters Raffaele Marchigiani, MD Sentara Surgery Specialists, Cardiothoracic and Thoracic Surgery View full profile
