This case study is a about MD Anderson Cancer Center that considered one of the largest center in cancer treatment that include all types of cancer through highly organized interdisciplinary system. This center became a part of University of Texas in 1942 and aimed to decrease or eliminate cancer in the state of Texas, the nation, and the world.
In order to accomplish this mission, MD Anderson Cancer Center developed many programs that related to patient care, research and prevention and through education of undergraduate and graduate students, trainees, professionals, employees, and the public. Although that center is located in Huston, Texas that contained around 13 hospitals and 512 inpatients bed with good facilities and medical care, MD Anderson Cancer Center is considered the best in term of cancer treatment and one of leading centers in cancer treatment across the country and the world.
A lot of ranking agencies recognized this center to be the first in cancer treatment in the United States and it maintained this rank for around four years since 2000 because the treatment that delivered in this center meet the criteria of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) such as ability to integrate a diversity of research approaches to focus on the problem of cancer, clinical care, and educational outreach. The Interdisciplinary System.
To achieve the goals that established for, MD Anderson Cancer Center apply interdisciplinary system to provide the best care and treatment for cancer patients. In addition, interdisciplinary system helps also in the managing and organizing the huge facility. Because of the nature of cancer diseases that can metastasis from a place to another and cancer treatment that affect the whole body, it was really important for this center to apply strict measure in the interdisciplinary program to avoid disease progression and guarantee an excellent result.
Cancer patients in MD Anderson Cancer Center classified into three groups as following: new diagnosed patents who need to be evaluated and treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center, patients who already diagnosed with cancer and needs another opinion or seek treatment in the center, and patients who failed therapy at other hospitals and sought care at MD Anderson as part of clinical trials.
There are many of the services that are provided by this center such as comprehensive screening service which includes risk assessment, screening exams, risk reduction strategies, preventive medicine and nutrition counseling.
Health care provider in this center was also learned and starts a new program for cancer survivors that aimed to follow up with cancer survivors to do research and check their needs. The center also expands through opining new clinics across Texas and New Mexico in a trial to increase the coverage for the people out of Huston’s borders especially in primary prevention of cancer. To evaluate their work, a great measure been used to assess the whole process and determine where they need an improvement in their health care system.
This measure depend on the 5-year mortality, a standard established by the national cancer institute’s surveillance epidemiology and end results (SEER) program. MD Anderson Cancer Center showed great results by having lower mortality rate and longer life span in the most type of cancer which made the center prove that it has one of the most effective interdisciplinary systems. Thus, a lot of students, physicians, scientist, nurses, and many healthcare professionals found this center to be a great place for education and research. Head and Neck Center.
One of the most difficult places that cancer can be located is head and neck because the sensitivity of the place and the different specialties that needs to work on the case. Thus, MD Anderson Cancer Center took time to open a center that specialized in this type of cancer. Collaboration between health care providers was accomplished to open such a center. The team consists of 12 physicians and dentists, 8 medical oncologists, 8 radiation oncologists, 1 diagnostic radiologist, 1 pathologist, 5 oncologic dentists and prosthodontics, and 4 ophthalmologists.
The surgeons and radiation oncologists provided care primarily to patients in head and neck cancers. Most of the doctors at this center received their education in MD Anderson Cancer Center which makes them qualified and trained to deliver care for those patients. Nurses participated in this care and played a crucial role in assessing patients’ needs, helps physicians and health care providers in delivering the care. Other medical professions also participated in the center such as Speech pathologist and audiologists assisted patient with their speech and hearing and helped them to regain their function.
In addition, around 4 speech pathologists and 3 audiologists follow up with the patients during receiving the care. Furthermore, nutritionist in the center also offers her help to the health care providers for better results. The policy of the center also require a meeting with a social worker within the first two days of admission and the same social worker maintained a relationship with the patient throughout care process to provide counseling and crises management for the patient and family. This system helped MD Anderson Cancer Center to increase the survival rates for head and neck cancer and patient satisfaction.
The New Endocrine Center Another step was planned by the center which is initiating a center that specialized in endocrine cancer. The idea came from a surgical oncologist who practicing in the gastrointestinal center and saw a huge benefits of this center especially for patients how have thyroid and parathyroid cancer. Based on this, the center provide surgical oncology training to physicians to make sure that new endocrine cancer center would have its independency and focus on endocrine diseases, and develop protocol of treatments with collaboration with other centers and physicians. Interdisciplinary Care Model Improvement.
Interdisciplinary care model of MD Anderson’s cancer center have a lot of positive results. However, it may need some advances such as more collaboration between medical and surgical oncology by initiating a unit that discuss medical surgical cancer treatments. The endocrine center needs also to be expanded to treat and diagnose other endocrine cancers and not to be limited to thyroid and parathyroid cancer. The writer of this case study suggest to initiate this center to be for all endocrine problems and seek all the oncology specialists in this field such as adrenal, pancreas and neuroendorine gland cancers.
This center should include medical exam rooms and operative area with special training staff to deal with such cases. Extend the Model Across America The system that MD Anderson has introduced is considering a form of interdisciplinary system that can be generalized in other places to treat cancer patients especially when the results are promising as MD Anderson Cancer Center mortality rate. This model will take a proactive role in influencing the debate surrounding health care delivery, pricing and defining meaningful metrics. Conclusion.
MD Anderson is great a reform of the US healthcare delivery system, it can be considered as a value-based healthcare delivery. Applying the principles of this model to the health care system will lead to a value based competition. When cancer patients are treated in multidisciplinary care setting within a comprehensive cancer center, this will lead to a powerful interdisciplinary health care system with better healthcare results.
References Porter, M. , Jain, S. (2010). The University of Texas MD Anderson cancer center: Interdisciplinary cancer care. Harvard business school. 9-708-487, PP13-16.