A Year in Review

BRIAN LEUTNER, MBA, Administrative Director, Pardee Oncology Services

This year has been an interesting journey in cancer care due to the COVID-19 concerns across the country and our local region. The protocols for COVID-19 screening went into place early throughout Pardee and needed to be monitored on a more detailed level with our cancer patients. This pandemic also brought on virtual patient visits and virtual meetings between colleagues. The providers and staff had to learn new technologies and ways to communicate that still provided the highest quality of care, while keeping our patient satisfaction as a key priority. The oncology team stepped up to the challenge and remained open minded by creating new ways in approaching patient care to ensure that our patients, their families and co-workers remained safe while continuing to give the needed therapies and procedures to our patients.

The Breast Center expanded its technologies to offer the community more access and increase our state of the art care for the region we serve. We added a second 3D mammography unit which allows more flexibility for patient scheduling due to the demand in our communities. The SmartCurve breast stabilization system was added to assist in decreasing the discomfort that our patients would often complain about when receiving their mammograms. Also, we are excited to now offer Automated Breast Ultrasound (ABUS) technology as a comfortable, non-ionizing alternative to other screening options for women with dense breasts. When used in addition to traditional mammography, the ABUS can improve breast cancer detection by 38 percent over mammography alone in those women with dense breast tissue. The medical oncology infusion volumes continued to increase with new immuno

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3-D MAMMOGRAPHY SUITES A second suite was added to the Breast Center in 2019 (see page 7).

INDIVIDUALS SCREENED for prostate and skin cancer through Pardee’s free community screenings.

108

VIRTUAL CONFERENCING OF CARE TEAM Allows patient’s multi-disciplinary team to continuously synchronize active plans for care and treatment.

CLINICAL TRIALS PATIENTS enrolled since program’s inception.

1000+

PARTNERED WITH NFL AND AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY to receive NFL Change Grant funds for lung cancer screenings (see page 12).

CANCER SURVIVORSHIP PROGRAMS Ten survivorship programs were offered in 2019 (see pages 9 and 13).

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COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS Four Seasons Palliative Care is an essential resource for patients in need of these services, by providing support, symptom management and increased quality of life (see page 14).

NEW RADIATION TECHNOLOGIES SBRT delivers radiation in 5 or less treatments over 1-2 weeks. ABC protects vital organs during breast radiation therapy (see page 11).

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NEW COMPOUNDING SOFTWARE BD IV Prep TM controls precise dosing of chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs (see page 12).

PREVENTION OF MALNUTRITION Regular interval screenings provided to assess risk and automatically refer patients to a dietitian (see page 15).

and chemotherapies, blood products and non-chemotherapy regimens offered to our patients. Radiation oncology kept their patients under treatment and new patient visit volumes up as well. This was all happening while our parameters around COVID-19 restrictions was steadily increasing. The providers and clinical teams throughout all of the oncology service line remained, and continue to remain, focused on high quality care to our patients and their family members.

We still hosted free annual community screenings for prostate and skin cancer, with a special vigilance on keeping them safe during these trying times. We remained focused on our survivors with a virtual survivorship series for young women affected by Breast Cancer, Living Beyond Breast Cancer, done via a virtual platform. We are thrilled to have partnered with the American Cancer Society, Blue Ridge Health and Advent Health to offer a more robust and focused lung cancer screening program through an NFL Change grant. There also was a focus and awareness put on staff that work directly with cancer patients and deal with the hardships of grief. A program was created in partnership with Four Seasons Palliative Care to help team members deal with grief and loss that is experienced in our environment.

Although this has been a year like no other, the entire Pardee oncology program continues to ensure that our community gets the care they need close to home, with the advanced technology they deserve. 