Transcription:
Bringing New Services to the Santa Clarita Valley

Melanie Cole (Host): Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital and Keck Medicine of USC are collaborating to bring advanced healthcare services directly to the Santa Clarita Valley and surrounding areas.

Welcome to it's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole and joining me today is Dr. May Lin Tao. She's the Medical Director of the Keck Medicine of USC, Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital Cancer Program. And she's a Clinical Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Keck School of Medicine.

Dr Tao, I'm so glad to have you join us today. As I started to say in my intro and Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital and Keck Medicine of USC recently announced this new joint venture to bring the advanced health care services to the Santa Clarita Valley. Can you tell us a little bit about this partnership? Why did you see a need for it and how did this come about?

May Lin Tao, MD, MS (Guest): Thank you so much, Melanie. So I think, there was a recognition from Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital that for them to be able to continue to really expand their services and to bring the kind of expertise to this community that was still not fully fulfilled, that they needed to find a partner who could recognize them as an independent entity with a lot of investment as a healthcare provider anchored in this community and do this in a collaborative way.

And so the two like minds with that concept in mind, came together with the idea of bringing additional value, additional services that were not fully enriched already here in this community. And that includes things like specialty surgeries, like colorectal surgeries or breast cancer surgeries, but also a full-fledged cancer program, which is where I play a role in directing.

Host: Well, I can tell you as someone who has interviewed so many of the amazing physicians and doctors and healthcare providers at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital, that they are passionate and dedicated. It's an excellent medical system. So tell us how the patients in this Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital community benefit. I'd like to know what kind of services you are going to offer. You mentioned a few of them briefly, but what types of conditions are you looking to treat and the services that you're offering now?

Dr. Tao: Well, our primary vision is to create a center that brings together a true multidisciplinary comprehensive program of care for cancer patients in it's every stage and form. So we're talking about building radiation, medical, and surgical oncology service lines, and really covering the whole spectrum of care. So from detection to diagnosis, to coordination of care, to the treatment, to the wraparound services of genetic testing, nutrition, all the way to survivorship, because the aftermath of cancer isn't the same as the format. And so there's oftentimes the need for either maintenance or continual close surveillance, in a package that I kind of call the total integrated care model for a patient with cancer.

So, previously many would leave the valley and go into more central part of Los Angeles seeking this kind of care, given the complexities of cancer care, given it's increasing sophistication and the new technologies that are coming out. But now, with this new collaboration, it's all here right at home in what we hope to build as a one-stop destination.

Host: Well, that total integrated care model is so important just now. And it helps people to really be their own best health advocate and get their care team around them, especially when they're dealing with something as devastating as cancers. So can you tell us how the collaboration launched? What was the first opening like? How has it been received?

Dr. Tao: So I'm a Radiation Oncologist as you introduced me earlier and our initial launch was actually the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Radiation Oncology Clinic right here on the Henry Mayo campus. And this is a totally renovated space. It's new to market technology that allows us to be able to treat a patient from the beginning all the way to the end.

Although services like this were being provided in the community before, it often crossed multiple facilities to get the planning and the actual treatment done. Some portions of the care had to occur even outside of Santa Clarita Valley. In this situation, all patients are going to come in from the time of consultation to coordination, to the actual imaging for radiation treatment planning and the care delivery, as well as the follow-up aftermath and provision of some of the support services I mentioned; all happened right here in this clinic. When we designed the clinic, we really considered the nature of the patient that we were going to be servicing. Cancer patients often come in quite debilitated. Their world may seem very dark to them. So the space is bright, warm, spacious. It has more of a living room feel to it. Our staff, are also geared towards that kind of same model of delivery of care. So, it's a very inviting place to be, if you had to go to have your cancer treated.

Host: See, that's lovely to me. And that is how I think it should be for all patients. And you're doing that with Keck Medicine and Henry Mayo. So I'd like to just ask you to expand a little on that multidisciplinary approach that you mentioned at the beginning, because that is what is so important. And the fact that people don't have to go 20 miles here and 20 miles over there and other places, but that they're really get together. But also the clinic. Yes. But that the doctors are all working together to give this patient the best care.

Dr. Tao: Yeah, thank you for asking that. So, the concept isn't just to have all the services in one building, but really to have us truly integrated intellectually and working together so that when a person comes in, they really feel like they're being led through the process of not only the initial detection, but the counseling behind what that really entails, that they're led towards the next provider.

And that provider speaks to the next provider, that in the discussion of their care, there is a multidisciplinary board in which all the providers have access to kind of information that they need, whether it's the pathology, it's the imaging, that they're all integrated within the same electronic system, having that discussion together, the nurse sharing that information with the patient afterwards and really navigating them through all of that process, pulling in things that they may not even realize they need like nutritional assessments or education, genetic counseling and evaluation. Even considering their social situation, so that they don't feel like they're the ones having to hustle from here to there when they're in this state of just being diagnosed or undergoing treatment. And honestly not having a lot of times the knowledge as to how to advocate themselves from point A to point B.

Host: Well, it can be confusing Dr. Tao for even the most experienced of us. And so I can understand why this is such a great thing for the community. And I also heard that you're currently collaborating to bring colorectal surgery. You mentioned that just a little bit and certain specialty orthopedic services to Santa Clarita, giving patients opportunities to receive those kinds of specialized services without having to leave the Santa Clarita Valley. Tell us about what you're expecting to happen.

Dr. Tao: So colorectal services, we often work with colorectal surgeons because some of the more complex surgeries they do are around cancers. So pelvic malignancies, colon, rectal, anal cancers. Sometimes even, what we call upper gastrointestinal cancers, or even liver cancers are all in their spectrum of care and tend to be some of the more complex things that they do.

And that is part of, again, this idea that regardless of the stage or the form of cancer you have, we will have the sort of specialty surgical or specialty oncology or specialty radiation, technology, services, and expertise to be able to address all of that along the line of, again, advanced sort of more complex surgery; our sports medicine orthopedic division is also going to have an office, not in the same building because it's not as directly related to cancer, but also connected to us, through our electronic medical record and our network, and present on the Henry Mayo campus as well.

Host: Isn't that so exciting. Now also, what about inpatient and outpatient oncology services. So you are the radiation oncologist and there's medical oncology and surgical oncology and subspecialties, as well as supportive care. Just give us a little overview of supportive care for patients. You know, we see doctors, it's a little bit intimidating. The supportive care staff are the ones there to help make it less intimidating. Yes? Speak a little bit about the importance of that.

Dr. Tao: Let me first touch a little bit about what you mentioned about the inpatient outpatient situation. So again, being on the Henry Mayo campus really allows us to be part of the medical community, whether we're talking about inpatient or outpatient care. So, that if there's an inpatient need, let's say someone comes in acutely ill and they're undergoing the process of being evaluated and being diagnosed; because of our proximity to the inpatient towers and the staff there, we can start the consultation, start the conversations, inject ourselves in what needs to properly done for the workup, right from the get-go because we're all present on one campus. In addition, whatever supportive services, whether we're talking about palliative services on campus, whether we're talking about pain control on campus, in the inpatient setting, in the outpatient setting, all of that is also not only physical, adjacent to where we are, but in that same doctor community where there's a continual discussion and communication going on.

Host: So important. So as we wrap up Dr. Tao in this exciting collaboration, what does it mean for folks in the community and indeed across the state? Tell us a little bit, just kind of wrap it up for us, but tell us a little bit about where it's located and how people can find out more.

Dr. Tao: I think one of the important things that I do want to emphasize is that in Keck Medicine's USC collaboration with Henry Mayo, an anchor medical facility here in the Santa Clarita Valley, is that this partnership is really about what's happening in the community so that the care is being delivered in the community. The providers themselves have dedicated themselves to the community. They're not just sort of swooping in, swapping out. Any kind of aftermath care continues on in the community. That we partner with resources that are already in the community. By way of example, the Sheila Vilas Breast Center, which is really a jewel in the community in terms of what it's been able to provide both for technology and counseling and education, as well as with the other providers, the other many expert primary care doctors that already exist in the community and being able to extend what they can provide for their patients. Keck Medicine is really a nationally recognized entity so that when we talk about being able to bring world-class medicine, whether it's research, whether it's the actual clinical practice of medicine that is really said with a lot of depth behind it.

So to be able to bring that right here to the communities so the community doesn't have to travel out for that, is really the kind of magic behind this collaboration.

Host: Beautifully put and what a great place to end here. Thank you so much for joining us today and telling us about this exciting Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital and Keck Medicine of USC joint venture. What an exciting benefit for the community.

And to make an appointment directly with our radiation oncology at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center Radiation Oncology Clinic, please call 661-839-1810. It's located in suite 110 on the first floor of the outpatient surgery center building on the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital campus, and our nurses and staff are available even before you arrive at the clinic to address any questions or concerns around your upcoming care. Or for the colorectal surgery clinic located in suite 220 of the same building, the phone number is 661-600-1740. You can always visit our website at henrymayo.com for more information.

And that wraps up this episode of It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. For more health tips and updates, follow us on your social channels. I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.