Mechanics of the cancer partnership

The newly opened Providence Regional Cancer Partnership boasts a $62.4 million state-of-the-art facility, with 100,000 square feet of space devoted to cancer care.

The Everett-based partnership also offers the latest in treatment technology, including TomoTherapy, a combination of CT scanning and radiation delivery, and a Varian Trilogy Linear Accelerator, an image-guided radiotherapy system that delivers radiation beams within 1 millimeter accuracy.

But maybe as impressive as the partnership’s building and cutting-edge cancer technology is the partnership itself, a collaboration between four leading regional medical groups — Providence Everett Medical Center, The Everett Clinic, Western Washington Medical Group and Northwest Washington Radiation Oncology Associates — that was five years in the making.

“We have been able to create something, we’ve gone further than we’ve been able to find in the country,” Executive Director Jean McMahon said of the health-care partnership.

Through a co-management agreement, PEMC delegates the administration, program development and quality management of several medical and service areas to The Everett Clinic, Western Washington Medical Group and Northwest Washington Radiation Oncology Associates, McMahon said.

Those areas include:

– The medical direction of the cancer program, which is headed up by Medical Director Dr. Elie Saikaly, affiliated with The Everett Clinic, and Assistant Medical Director Dr. Mark Coughenour, affiliated with Western Washington Medical Group.

– Radiation oncology, which is headed up by Dr. Will Wisbeck, affiliated with Northwest Washington Radiation Oncology Associates.

– Surgical oncology, which is headed up by Dr. Tom Smith, affiliated with The Everett Clinic.

– Cancer research, which is headed up Dr. Peter Jiang, affiliated with Western Washington Medical Group.

– Integrative medicine, which is headed up by Dr. Cheryl Beighle, associated with The Everett Clinic.

– Cancer support services, which is headed up by Dr. Paul Schoenfeld, associated with The Everett Clinic.

“What the co-management agreement does is partners the (other three health-care providers) with the hospital so that we’re all sitting around the table,” McMahon said.

While Providence is the builder of the building and owner of the program, all four separate entities have a say in the partnership through its executive committee, which includes eight voting members, two from each of the partners, McMahon said.

“Part of why we believe we’re so successful is that both the medical groups and the hospital believe strongly in physician leaders being members at the table when it comes to programming,” she said, noting that the agreement stipulates at least one voting member of each of the four partners be a physician.

Another mechanism of the cancer partnership is the medical equipment leasing company formed by the three participating medical groups, which together invested $10.8 million in high-tech radiation equipment, which is then leased on a per-treatment basis to PEMC.

Together, the co-management agreement and the equipment leasing vehicle have created an environment in which physicians of competing medical groups are fully engaged in the cancer center’s success while enabling the health-care community to fund a big-budget project much-needed in the community, McMahon said.

“The third piece really is that the two medical oncology practices, The Everett Clinic and Western Washington Medical Group, have come together on the third floor and jointly leased space. While being separate corporations, they have installed the same software and agreed on chemotherapy protocols,” she said. “… There are just so many benefits for patients.”

Such cooperation for the benefit of the patients can be found in the partnership’s coordination of care, which includes the facility itself as well as the standardized care guidelines and electronic medical record system used by all the providers.

There also are multidisciplinary cancer conferences held regularly in which an array of cancer specialists involved in patient care meet to discuss specific patients. In a conference room with a state-of-the-art audio visual system, a team of physicians looks at radiology exam results and pathology reports, and shares a discussion about each patient’s cancer and best treatment course.

“The multidisciplinary cancer conference is really the foundation of our program,” McMahon said. “When we began to build up the recruitment of our physicians five years ago, we had one conference per week, a general cancer conference. We now have four cancer conferences per week.”

Together, the partnership’s roster of more than 17 physicians and more than 80 staff expect to provide seamless care for as many as 300 patients per day.

“When it comes to saying, ‘You’ve got to go to New York, Houston, wherever’ (to get cancer treatment), we are following the same guidelines here,” McMahon said.

Thanks to the partnership of health-care providers that have a history of competition, such top-of-the-line cancer care is available much closer to home, she said.