The Doctor Is In
Fairmont Hotel
USAir from Philadelphia to Chicago for a Medical Oncology Advisory Board meeting and our Annual Medical Oncology Summit. The meeting was held at the Fairmont, a beautiful hotel near the Navy Pier. As usual, the slowest part of the trip was the leg between O’Hare and the city. Once there, Chicago is one of my favorites.
The Advisory Board Meeting was Wednesday, beginning bright and early and lasting through the day. Our Advisers are a terrific mix if professionals – Nurses, Pharmacists, Physicians, Administrators…. representing the spectrum of our US Medical Oncology user base. What an amazing day! Lots of great discussion with “Meaningful Use” and HITECH/ARRA the lead topic. As we prepare for the behemoth of this program, it is so clear to me how critically important this Advisory Board is to our success. It’s not just preparing MOSAIQ for certification, but also our customer base for what they’ll need to do to qualify. Spreading the word in every which way, including through this board, will be critical to success.
Lots of other topics were discussed, including QOPI support, our ever improving UI, some improvements in chemotherapy dose adjusting, and one of my favorite new MOSAIQ features – the availability of ALL MOSAIQ Assessment data elements as eScribe document merge fields. The MD’s will love this – it’s going to make their lives so much easier. The icing on the cake will be the ability to import, export and therefore share the assessment views and the eScribe templates. Both will be available in MOSAIQ 2.3, though Assessment import/export is available now. I don’t mean to sound too promotional here, but this one is really a biggie.
Through the course of the meeting, one statement in particular, made by Rajinder Dhada who has taken an interest in these meetings, is worth repeating here. “It’s the ultimate in adaptive therapy”, he said, with reference to a discussion on how on-the-fly changes to chemotherapy administration orders should be managed. That says it all.
The day was capped by dinner with our advisers in a hotel restaurant – dare I say – called “Aria”.
Our Advisers
A nice respite to end a long day’s work, even if the name wasn’t so fitting.
Next day began the Medical Oncology Summit meeting. I have to confess I was only able to stick my head in a few times over the day because of conflicting meetings, but what I saw was a real surprise. For the opening session, not only was it a bigger room than I had expected, but it was completely filled to near capacity – standing room only. Wow! I’m told it is our largest attendance thus far,
standing room only
and having been to most of these Annual Summits, I must say we’ve come a long way. No surprise that “Meaningful Use”, HITECH/ARRA were at the top of the list of interest. Yes, there are dollars at stake, but there are also important implications related to work flow, effects on patient chart access, physician order entry, decision support and many other issues. For the MOSAIQ product development group, it’s been the single highest priority.
Of course, there were lots of other interesting sessions including ones touching on survivorship, data visualization, clinical trial eligibility determination, billing… and the like. A great meeting with a great outcome, and I only hope we’ve not raised the bar too high.
I’m on vacation next week, but will sticking around the area. I will be visiting the White House during the week and bowling there (courtesy of some DC connections), so maybe will have a few words about that in my next blog.
Joel
Off to Wurzburg, Germany to visit Matthias Guckenberger and the University Radiation Oncology (Klinik und Poliklinik für Strahlentherapie) Department there. Took USAir from Philadelphia to Frankfurt (always a treat, especially in economy class), followed by a real train from Frankfurt to Wurzburg. The Europeans do training right! I arrived at my hotel after a short walk from the Wurzburg Bahnhof on Sunday morning, and did a little touring of Wurzburg during the day.
When I visit Germany, it’s especially fun for me because I get to brush up on my very limited high-school German language skills.
Wurzurg, Germany
I arrived bright and early Monday morning at the Wurzburg Department, and was greeted by Matthias at their Physics division which is located in temporary office space turned permanent in Building B3 [photo]. It was a short walk from my hotel, but I took a wrong turn and spent an extra 10 minutes backtracking.
We spent most of the day going over their Elekta Symmetry work-flow, discussing a paper Matthias wrote, and some ideas he had concerning a super-secret Symmetry-related enhancement. We also spent a couple hours looking through some patient records for ELRG data, and discussing ways to make MOSAIQ work more effectively for Wurzburg. Among many things, I learned that in Germany, the Department Chair (in this case Professor Michael Flentje) has to sign off on each and every radiation prescription, letter and note since they are legally responsible. So, they need a real good way to provide a high level summary of the patient’s care on one page, and to get there without lots of clicks. I love a challenge!
During the day, I also had lunch with Matthias and Dr. Reinhart Sweeney who treats the pediatric cases at Wurzburg. So, we had lots to talk about. We topped of the visit with dinner at a beautiful restaurant in the hills surrounding Wurzburg. I walked there, but got lost and ended up taking a taxi. Can someone tell me why German taxi drivers speak better English than the ones in Philadelphia?
At the restaurant, I was greeted by Matthias and Reinhart and was surprised to meet two Elekta colleagues – Annika Chill and Selma Setin – who joined us and happened to be in town working on the Wurzburg Hexapod couch. The five of us had a great dinner and nice discussions, among other things over protons, the evolving role of the radiation oncologist in an increasingly connected and technological world, and Elekta’s role in making that happen. Sounds boring, but it really wasn’t. Maybe that was the German Reisling talking? [photo]
I returned to the department the next day where I finished my work and also got a nice tour of an amazing facility [photos], which is distributed widely over a number of locations on the University Campus. They’re using beautiful Synergy-S to treat their SBRT lung cases, so a spent an extra few minutes looking at that portion of the department. [photo]
On my way out, Matthias asked me whether I had visited the Wurzburg Wilhelm Roentgen museum. Holy cow, I had forgotten that Wurzburg was where Roengten discovered the X-ray. On my way to the train station, I made a quick stop, convinced the guard at the door to show me it, and snapped a few priceless photos. It was not easy to find the building which is under construction, but well worth the search.
All in all, it was a fantastic and productive visit. I made tentative plans to return, and may even join Reinhart for an upcoming trip that he is planning to an Elekta site near Sibera. Now that will really be interesting!
Next week, off to the Med Onc summit in Chicago. See you there.
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion Advanced Program for Stereotactic Radiosurgery September 8, 2015Objective To further enhance the participant’s knowledge of Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion and its advanced applications in the field of stereotactic radiosurgery. Specific focus will be placed on Gamma Knife surgery with or without the Extend System for several different indications. Patient selection, radiosurgical techniques and complication avoidance as […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion - Upgrade Program December 10, 2013Objective To receive aspects of clinical and technical training for handling new features of Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion, when upgrading from previous models. Training on the dynamic workflow of Leksell GammaPlan includes instruction on using the pre-planning and follow-up features of the program as well as on developing treatment plans using composite sho […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion - Introductory Program December 8, 2013Objective To identify the basic principles and biophysics of Gamma Knife surgery and how they apply to day-to-day patient treatment. Review the clinical indications, parameters of treatment and outcomes of Gamma Knife surgery. Recognize radiation safety issues and principles, as well as become familiar with emergency procedures that pertain to Leksell Gamma […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion - Applications Introductory Program November 17, 2013Objective To make users confident in the operation, care and maintenance of Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion. The course focuses on radiation physics, dosimetry, stereotaxy for Gamma Knife surgery, quality assurance (QA), technical information and treatment planning using Leksell GammaPlan®. Content ■ Principles of stereotaxy and radiosurgery ■ Prin […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion / 4C - Introductory Program November 10, 2013Objective To obtain knowledge about the practical aspects of stereotactic radiosurgery using Leksell Gamma Knife. Principles of radiation physics and radiobiology, that apply to single-session, focused, small volume irradiation will be covered. Registrants should be able to create radiosurgery dose plans for various indications. Content ■ Principles a […]
- Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion Clinical Introductory Program October 6, 2013Objective To introduce clinicians to Gamma Knife® surgery with Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion and Extend™ System. The course focuses on clinical information, combined with hands-on sessions using Leksell GammaPlan®. Experts with years of experience from Gamma Knife surgery are selected to lecture on this course. Training center and duration 4-day course at Un […]
- XiO - Application December 16, 2012OBJECTIVE To provide applications training in the use of XiO for treatment planning. The course provides an understanding of the software enabling the user to efficiently create effective treatment plans using our product. COURSE CONTENT Structure Contouring Digitized Contour-based Planning 2D Irregular Field Planning 3D External Beam Planning Special Plann […]
- XiO IMRT December 9, 2012Objective To provide applications training in IMRT treatment planning utilizing the Xio Treatment Planning System. The course provides an understanding of the IMRT software enabling the user to efficiently create effective IMRT treatment plans using our product. Course Content Contouring for IMRT Planning Beam Placement IMRT Prescription Optimization Segme […]
- SRT December 9, 2012OBJECTIVE This advanced clinical training program is designed to present the processes required to implement SRT for routine treatment on Elekta Axesse™ and other Elekta linear accelerators sterotactic capabilities. COURSE CONTENT • Recognize indications for and outcomes of SRT/Radiosurgery • Understand dose selection, fractionation and planning techniqu […]
- Monaco December 9, 2012OBJECTIVE To provide applications training in advanced radiobiology-based IMRT treatment planning. The course provides an understanding of the IMRT software enabling the user to efficiently create effective IMRT treatment plans using our product. COURSE CONTENT Contouring / Image Fusion for IMRT Planning Beam Template Creation The IMRT Prescription IMRT Co […]