{"id":2771,"date":"2014-10-29T11:18:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T15:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.229.122.34\/en\/?p=2771"},"modified":"2021-02-17T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T18:30:00","slug":"changes-ease-the-difficult-journey-for-lung-cancer-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/changes-ease-the-difficult-journey-for-lung-cancer-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes ease the difficult journey for lung-cancer patients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-center\"><em>Dr. Michael Fung-Kee-Fung (back left) is leading the cancer-care program redesign, with the help of Drs. James Villeneuve (front left), Paul Wheatley-Price (front right) and Jason Pantarotto, aiming not only to serve patients better, but also to make better use of staff\u2019s time, energy and efforts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Teams of cancer-care clinicians have worked tirelessly in recent months to cut the wait times for lung cancer diagnoses from as long as three months to two weeks \u2013 a move that not only helps reduce the stress on patients, but also can mean the difference between life and death given that lung cancer spreads so aggressively.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe disease could get worse while our patients wait for care,\u201d said Dr. James Villeneuve, a thoracic surgeon at The Ottawa Hospital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are waiting too long and that\u2019s unacceptable,\u201d added Dr. Jason Pantarotto, Chief of Radiation Oncology.<\/p>\n<p>Their effort is the first step in an ambitious plan to reorganize the hospital\u2019s entire cancer-care program, making it less fragmented and more responsive to patients\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to redesign the delivery of care around the patient to improve their outcomes and their experience,\u201d said Dr. Michael Fung-Kee-Fung, Head of Surgical Oncology, who is leading the redesign. \u201cThis involves reorganizing all the health-care providers around the patient\u2019s journey. Their common focus is to implement innovative practices, new therapies and new ideas for delivering care in more efficient and effective ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Currently, every patient with suspicious changes in lung tissue must go through multiple tests to get a diagnosis. Each step \u2013 scan, biopsy and lab tests \u2013 has its own waiting list and maze of paperwork. By the time patients finally get a diagnosis and an appointment with a surgeon or oncologist, their treatment options are often limited.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Fung-Kee-Fung\u2019s redesign team, along with dozens of managers and cancer-care colleagues, have tackled the long waits by mapping out every step in the long, roundabout route to diagnosis. They set aggressive turnaround times at every stage, while stamping out inefficiencies. The result is a simpler way to handle lung assessments that ensures that patients\u2019 files are handed from clinic to diagnostics to the most appropriate specialist as quickly and seamlessly as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Michael Fung-Kee-Fung (back left) is leading the cancer-care program redesign, with the help of Drs. James Villeneuve (front left), Paul Wheatley-Price (front right) and Jason Pantarotto, aiming not only to serve patients better, but also to make better use of staff\u2019s time, energy and efforts. Teams of cancer-care clinicians have worked tirelessly in recent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":2773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}