From the September 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
• Brachytherapy and proton therapy treatment times can be cut, opening up capacity for the department.
• No longer sharing the facility’s main CT scanner with other hospital departments, the cancer center frees up capacity for the main scanner.
• Quicker treatments and less inconvenience and waiting can lead to patients giving a facility a more favorable Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, or HCAHPS, score. Insurers often tie reimbursement to ratings derived from these scores.
• Since patients aren’t moved before scanning on a portable CT, the likelihood of brachytherapy applicator movement is reduced.
• Remove the need for re-scanning when a patient has had his or her applicators moved when transferred from one table to another, further increasing capacity and workflow efficiencies.
Adding it all together
Brachytherapy is an exciting, but often complex, modality for treating cancer. Itsometimes involves patient discomfort, but removes the risks that come with surgery. According to the American Brachytherapy Society, the payoff is real in the long run — it can be an effective way to treat cancers, and patients often experience fewer side effects than with other treatment modalities. Proton therapy, another cutting-edge, cancer-fighting therapy, can target tumor tissue with a precision that just a few years ago would have been unimaginable with conventional photon, or X-ray, therapy. It also promises fewer side effects because it significantly reduces damage to healthy tissue and vital organs.
Dedicated portable CT scanners for the brachytherapy and proton therapy suites are a way to reduce discomfort while increasing efficiency, outcomes and patient satisfaction, which is why we’re seeing additional cancer centers implement them. That efficiency will be welcomed as more patients with cancer diagnoses will need treatment in future years.
About the author: Phil Sullivan is president and CEO of Samsung NeuroLogica.Back to HCB News
