OncoLog, Volume 49, Number 11, November 2004 Page: 4
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Meeting the Rising Demand for Outpatient Care
(Continued from page 3,Patients and caregivers helped
architects plan a building that
will provide advanced care in
a relaxed environment that
doesn't feel like a hospital.reasons-a chronic shortage of inpatient
hospital beds. "It's a significant problem
in hospitals throughout the country," said
Dr. Escalante. "One way to deal with the
overload is to treat as many patients as
possible in the outpatient venue and save
our inpatient beds for the very sick
patients with complicated cases."
Treatment advances
Another reason for the increase in
outpatient care has been the develop-
ment of equipment and treatment
advances that are as effective but less
invasive and debilitating than previous
treatments.
"At M. D. Anderson, we have found
ways to treat patients on an outpatient
basis that would have been considered
absolutely unfeasible years ago," said
Dr. Ewer. One example is the 23-hour
mastectomy. According to Raphael E.
Pollock, M.D., Ph.D., division head and
a professor in the Department of Surgi-
cal Oncology, "Twenty years ago, if you
were having a mastectomy, you were an
inpatient for eight days, and now it's
routinely done as outpatient surgery."
Studies show that outpatient surgery can
be performed safely, effectively, and to
the patient's satisfaction, by careful
coordination of inpatient and outpatient
services. In fact, last year over a third of
the surgeries performed at M. D. Ander-
son were done on an outpatient basis.
Significant advances in chemotherapy
administration have alsc. made it possible
to offer outpatient treatment to more
patients. Previously, extremely sedating
drugs used to control common chemo-
therapy side effects such as nausea and
vomiting made hospitalization a neces-
sity. Now, newer nonsedating antiemeticdrugs such as Zofran
(ondansetron) are very
effective in controlling
these side effects. Low-
risk patients with febrile
neutropenia or deep
venous thrombosis can
also be treated success-
fully as outpatients.
With these advances,
almost all chemotherapy
administration is now
done in an outpatient
setting. M. D.
Anderson's quickly
growing Ambulatory
Treatment Center
(ATC) is now the
largest outpatient
infusion center in the
world, with over 50,000
patient visits a year.
One-stop shoppingM. D. Anderson's outpatient services
have expanded exponentially in recent
years to meet the growing demand.
Multidisciplinary care centers were
implemented throughout the institution
in the 1990s to provide patients with a
convenient and comfortable setting in
which to receive outpatient care. These
specialized clinics, organized around
specific types of cancer, provide coordi-
nated care from many different special-
ties, including diagnostic imaging,
medical oncology, phlebotomy, radia-
tion oncology, surgical oncology, and
supportive care specialties, allowing
patients to receive all their treatments
at one facility. The care centers have
become the hub of patient care at M. D.
Anderson and continue to grow, withH7
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over 600,000 patient visits during the
past year alone.
To continue to meet the growing
need for high-quality outpatient care,
M. D. Anderson will open a new
Ambulatory Clinical Building (ACB)
in March. The eight-floor, 781,000-
square-foot facility will house expanded
multidisciplinary care centers for breast,
genitourinary, and gynecologic cancers,
as well as a host of support programs.
Patients in these centers will have
access to most services they need
under one roof.
"The idea was to take a 'one-stop
shopping' approach so patients wouldn't
have to shuttle all around our growing
campus for different services," said Janet
Sisolak, facilities project director.
Toward that end, the ACB features a4 OncoLog " November 2004
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University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. OncoLog, Volume 49, Number 11, November 2004, periodical, November 2004; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth902761/m1/4/?rotate=0: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.