Medical Oncology Software
Dr. Patrick Cobb stood in amazement as hundreds of patients, friends and supporters flowed through the front doors
Elekta Synergy of the Frontier Cancer Center and Blood Institute Sunday afternoon.
Each who passed by were welcomed with a hug or handshake before roaming around the new $23 million cancer center where Cobb is a managing partner.
Crowds wandered through the radiology waiting room, passed the phlebotomy area and through various exam rooms.
The tour continued upstairs to the chemotherapy area and the outside deck area.
Formerly known as the Hematology Oncology Center of the Northern Rockies, which was located on North 30th Street, the new center has been three years in the making.
read more here – http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_d34298d2-b3f8-11df-b128-001cc4c002e0.html
The Frontier Cancer Center is equipped with MOSAIQ™ – Elekta’s Medical and Radiation Oncology Software and an Elekta Synergy Linac
Elekta VMAT (Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy) is Elekta’s next generation arc therapy technique that establishes new standards for radiation therapy treatment speed and dose reduction to the patient. With Elekta VMAT, single or multiple radiation beams sweep in uninterrupted arc(s) around the patient, dramatically speeding treatment delivery. Doctors can use Elekta VMAT with complete or partial arc(s) to reduce treatment times from the eight to twelve minutes required for “conventional” radiation therapy to as few as two minutes.
read more at http://www.elekta.com/VMAT
Q. What is the biggest change at your center since implementing MOSAIQ software?
McKay: The best thing has been the tremendous calm in the office. We’re not running around, looking for charts. We had college students working for us just finding records. And there are no overhead pages, because those were always searches for records.
Saphner: Productivity has really improved. We had a legion of people in medical records, and it cost us five bucks to pull a chart. When you think about all the times you pull those charts, it was a lot of money. We saw that an enormous amount of energy was wasted looking for charts and even handling charts. EMR is always available to us, even if we’re at home. And if you have downtime at a satellite clinic, you can use the time online, approving documents.
Willard: The improved workflow as a result of EMR has been the most visible part of the program. You don’t have four health information personnel walking around looking for charts. Charts are available at the tips of your fingers, and can be securely accessed and reviewed from home on any configured computer with an internet connection.
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Q. Do you consider yourself at the forefront of technology, since you are an early adopter of EMR?
MOSAIQ®
About Our Experts
The implementation of electronic medical records (EMR) has become a hot topic as a component of proposed healthcare reforms. For those centers already using oncology-specific EMR systems, the benefits far outweigh any challenges. We gathered advice, input and results from three experts, each of whom has implemented a medical oncology EMR system from industry leader Elekta Impac Software. Our experts (listed alphabetically):
• Terry McKay, President and CEO of the West Michigan Cancer Center Kalamazoo, MI
• Thomas Saphner, M.D., FACP, Principle Investigator for the St. Vincent Regional Cancer Center CCOP, Green Bay Oncology Green Bay, WI
• Kim Willard, Impac Systems Administrator, Palmetto Hematology Oncology Clinic Spartanburg, SC
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Q. What is the biggest change at your center since implementing MOSAIQ software?
Spotlight on Success
Elekta is a medical technology company specializing in radiation therapy and neurosurgery solutions for treatment of cancer and brain disorders. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Elekta maintains offices in several other countries, including a significant presence in the United States. Elekta supports its products with training programs for the medical and scientific professionals who comprise their customer base. This month’s Spotlight on Success describes how an Elekta writing team applied the Information Mapping® method to help customers learn to make quick, easy corrections to cancer treatment plans.
Meet Diane Norris
Diane Norris
Diane told us that she finds the Method extremely valuable and makes use of it in all aspects of her work. She has also successfully applied the Method to develop her 80-page doctoral proposal at Georgia Tech, where she is pursuing a PhD in nuclear engineering.
Writing training for users of radiation therapy equipment and software products
George Andl
Diane is a member of an internationally based technical writing group that creates documentation and training materials for Elekta’s radiation therapy equipment and software products. A notable example of the team’s work is a Quick Start reference guide intended for use by clinicians on radiation oncology teams. These clinicians deploy Elekta’s PrecisePLAN software to design treatment plans for cancer patients using Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) technologies. We recently interviewed Diane and medical physicist George Andl, who worked closely with her and another team member to develop the Quick Start reference guide.
Targeting radiation to tumors, not healthy tissue
George, who acted as the primary subject matter expert for this project, explained that the PrecisePLAN software simplifies development of IMRT treatment plans by enabling clinicians to simulate the effects of different intensities of radiation on tumors and surrounding tissues. The objective is to maximize the dosage of radiation to a tumor, which may be large or irregularly shaped, while minimizing the dosage to surrounding critical organs. Clinicians can use the PrecisePLAN tool to model different scenarios, evaluate their treatment plans, and correct problems before submitting the plans to oncologists for implementation.
“The basic concept is to make the high dosage of radiation target the shape of the tumor,” George said. “We want to drive the number of complications down by reducing damage to healthy tissue. This software enables simulation before treatment.”
Quick Start reference guide
The Quick Start reference guide is an excellent illustration of how Information Mapping principles can be applied to enable quick scanning and optimize learning. The reference guide is an 11 X 17 inch poster entitled Procedures to Correct IMRT Plans. It provides customers with “at a glance” instructions for dealing with specific problems that arise as they develop their IMRT treatment plans. Enhancing her application of the Information Mapping method with her own expertise regarding use of color, Diane has created a reference guide that is intuitive to use and supports performance by making it remarkably easy for clinicians to find the information they need to troubleshoot their treatment plans and take corrective action.
Procedures to Correct IMRT Plan Poster
“Our customers wallpaper their workspace with this poster”
“I used the basic principles of the Method, like chunking and relevance, to help me organize the information on this poster,” said Diane. “There was a lot of information to include, but being able to think ‘in Information Mapping’ was tremendously helpful. It’s really the way you think about the information that makes the difference.”
George added, “What we needed to do was to capture the relationships among the different problems and their solutions. I feel that we succeeded. I spend some of my time working with our Customer Support staff, and I know that our customers wallpaper their workspace with this poster. They probably don’t have to rely on it after they’ve gained skills, but early on while they’re learning the different procedures, it’s quite valuable to them.”
The Quick Start reference guide has been in use for over a year and a half, and it is working so well that Diane anticipates the need to develop similar guides for other Elekta products. Needless to say, she plans to apply her Information Mapping skills to ensure that they’re as effective as this one.
For more information, view the original article on InfoMap.com
Visit Elekta/IMRT
The second day of the 2009 AAPM drew thousands of Physicists to the Anaheim Convention Center. Elekta’s Booth 423, the largest and most prominent at the show, attracted hundreds of people for non-stop demonstrations of its new Monaco treatment planning system optimized for VMAT, its MOSAIQ EMR system and its Infinity and Synergy linear accelerators.
Elekta hosted an Impac Users Meeting Luncheon and drew record crowds, with over 200 people in attendance to hear a talk on Beyond Rapid: Elekta VMAT Innovations. Todd Powell, Sr. VP Product Creation described our MOSAIQ 2.0 EMR and Dee Mathieson, Sr. VP Business Line Management, spoke about our Monaco treatment planning system with VMAT and how it works with the Elekta
linear accelerators.
- AAPM
At the 2009 American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) annual meeting, July 26-30 in Anaheim, California, We will demonstrate how our company’s comprehensive VMAT solution can help health care providers deliver superior cancer care with precision and ease.
Discover the new paradigm in VMAT planning
An advanced, clinically relevant IMRT planning system, Monaco® brings innovative concepts to the clinic that help make the planning process easier, more straightforward and clinically reliable.
New VMAT tools enable users to create arc-based treatment plans using all of the features already available in Monaco. With reduced planning time and increased clinical throughput, Monaco with VMAT optimizes single or multiple non-coplanar arcs simultaneously, providing the flexibility and control needed for complex treatment plans.
“The receipt of 510(k) clearance from the FDA for Monaco with VMAT is a significant event on the way to final release of the planning software,” said Joseph K. Jachinowski, President and CEO of Elekta North America. “The VMAT capabilities within Monaco will help clinicians choose the best treatment options available and improve quality of care.”
Optimize treatment with the market-leading oncology EMR
Built upon 15 years of development, application and innovation, MOSAIQ® 2.0 increases productivity, elevates efficiency and facilitates high-quality patient care. Complete with new connectivity, new functions and database enhancements, while preserving the user interface MOSAIQ supports the entire cancer team by uniting diverse systems and devices.
“Simple and intuitive, yet incredibly powerful, MOSAIQ 2.0 is the next major milestone in the development of oncology information systems,” said Jay Hoey, Executive Vice President of Product Creation for Elekta and CEO of Elekta Impac Software. “We’ve invested thousands of man-months of R&D and seriously advanced technology to deliver the most elegant, most comprehensive, most stable, and highest performing information product available for radiation and medical oncology.”
Distinguish yourself with the definitive VMAT delivery system
Elekta Infinity integrates the most advanced capabilities available with unmatched ease of use. The only fully integrated treatment system that allows personalization of imaging and treatment workflows, Infinity can dramatically reduce IMRT treatment sessions with the flexibility of multiple arcs to improve conformance.
“Elekta has always focused on providing highly refined tools, like Infinity, that support specific clinical objectives, yet share a common foundation in terms of imaging, planning and information management,” continues Jachinowski. “The result is a comprehensive treatment solution that frees clinicians to focus on patients, instead of the technology.”
Elekta also plans to host several education seminars and events in conjunction with the annual meeting. For additional information and registration, visit elekta.com/aapmevents .
Top 10 Cancers
With more than 2.2 million cases collected from 1985 to present, NODA offers a broad range of data, including detailed tumor descriptions, treatments (radiation, hormonal, chemotherapy, biological and surgical), and survival outcomes in both outpatient and inpatient settings. NODA also is a pre-validated source of timely, longitudinal cancer data for population-based research.
“Fast and easy to use, we use the NODA, for simplified access to cancer demographics,” says Diane Skinner, CTR Cancer Data Manager, Gibbs Regional Cancer Center. “We find the NODA support staff to be very helpful in providing useful survival analyses that are based on comparative data, as well as offering lung cancer and breast cancer survival statistics on a routine basis.”
For additional information on how participation can help your oncology practice, visit www.impac.com/noda.
Elekta Virtual Clinic
The Elekta Virtual Clinic offers an easy way to explore how our solutions can help support healthcare professionals to provide the best possible care for patients.
Click here to view the Elekta Virtual Clinic
Low Bandwidth? No problem, click here to order your Elekta Virtual Clinic CD via the mail
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