FirstHealth Releases Cancer Services Annual ReportNew technologies, facilities, services and personnel related to cancer care at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital highlight the FirstHealth of the Carolinas 2007 Cancer Services Annual Report.
The report, "The Shape of Today's Most Advanced Cancer Care," is now available for online viewing on the FirstHealth Web site, www.firsthealth.org.
In the report, Dr. Jeffrey Acker, medical director of the Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center at Moore Regional, focuses on the advances in cancer treatment at the hospital.
"Through continued research and scientific study, our knowledge about cancer is rapidly advancing," Acker says. "This opens new opportunities to expand and improve our existing program as well as to introduce initiatives to better the health of our community as it relates to cancer.
"Our Community Hospital
Comprehensive Cancer Center provides both inpatient and outpatient services as well as state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment and innovative treatment technologies."
The new technologies highlighted in the report include a new HDR (high dose rate brachytherapy) suite that is unique to FirstHealth; hyperbaric wound care, a service available at Richmond Memorial Hospital as well as Moore Regional; and "gold standard" CT scanning with the recent addition of a new 64-slice CT scanner at Moore Regional.
Highlighted facilities include the Chest Center of the Carolinas, a specialty center where multiple specialists coordinate the treatment of diseases of the chest; and the Outpatient Cancer Center Specializing in Hematology and Oncology, a partnership with the cancer specialists at Pinehurst Medical Clinic that is housed in a renovated building that once housed the Ambulatory Surgery Center.
"The FirstHealth Outpatient Cancer Center demonstrates the passion and commitment our administration, physicians and staff have in shaping our cancer services," says Kerry Husted, administrative director of Moore Regional's pharmacy/oncology service line. "Our newly re-designed and expanded cancer center integrates Moore Regional Hospital's outpatient infusion services with Pinehurst Medical Clinic's office-based clinical practice to deliver more efficient, patient-centered care in one location. "The center has brought physicians and hospital infusion/chemotherapy services together for more coordinated care with physicians always close by during therapy services."
An article in the November 2007 issue of Ladies Home Journal points out how lung cancer survival rates at Moore Regional exceed national averages, thanks to the multidisciplinary efforts of the Chest Center of the Carolinas.
Unlike treatment options for which patients must make multiple visits to multiple locations to see each of the specialists involved in their care, the Chest Center allows patients to come to one location where all of the specialists come to them.
"We have some of the best survival rates in the country, and our five-year survival rate exceeds the national average by about 4 percent," says Dr. Andy C. Kiser, a cardiothoracic surgeon and medical director of the Chest Center of the Carolinas. "We believe those numbers can only be the result of one thing: our real-time, multi-specialty approach. These exceptional patient outcomes are due, totally, to the expertise of the multi-disciplinary staff of physicians, nurses and support staff."
The new services discussed in the 2007 Cancer Report include a Cancer Support Services Program that assists patients and their families with a variety of counseling, support, crisis intervention and grief and bereavement programs; a Breast Health Program that is unique to the Montgomery County community; and a patient assistance specialist and oncology financial counselor who work solely with patients who are undergoing cancer treatment.
In his site report on breast cancer, Dr. Raymond Washington, a general surgeon with Pinehurst Surgical, points out an overall decline in breast cancer mortality.
"At FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, the five-year survival rate for breast cancers diagnosed between 1998 and 1999 was well above the North Carolina and American Cancer Society averages," Washington says. "Although breast cancer continues to affect many women in the United States annually, we have seen progress in early detection and improved five-year survival with improved detection, treatment modalities and the multidisciplinary team approach at Moore Regional Hospital."
Other highlights of the 2007 Cancer Services Report focus on such philanthropic efforts as the Cancer CARE Fund, the CARE-Net program and the local National Cancer Survivors Day observation as well as the soon-to-be-constructed Hospitality House, a residential environment for the families of patients being treated at Moore Regional Hospital.
New staff members who specialize in cancer care are also highlighted in the report.
To see the entire 2007 Cancer Services Annual Report, go to the FirstHealth of the Carolinas Web site, www.firsthealth.org, and click on 2007 Cancer Services Annual Report. Anyone who would like a printed version of the report can call 715-1478 or toll-free (800) 213-3284.
