Cancer patients who are members of Kaiser Permanente can sometimes have access to drugs still in clinical trials. “Unlike a private-practice doctor who needs to justify to Medicare that they are going to use such and such drug, and if Medicare doesn’t have it on their list ... here we just order it,” says Dr. Jenny Devitt, a Kaiser oncologist. “There are no restrictions on the doctor in terms of what medications the doctor feels is appropriate to treat the patient. And furthermore, we have clinical trials so that we may give patients access to drugs that are not yet FDA approved. Experimental therapies, innovative therapies, all these new things that are coming down the pike, Kaiser has access to. There are a lot more options and much less restrictions.”
Cancer treatment at Kaiser usually begins with the patient’s physician. “When primary care doctors are working on patients and suspect they have cancer, they often will consult us,” Devitt says. “We have a designated physician in our department who reviews all the consultations. We also assist in the order of tests and scans and call the patients in to counsel them.”
When patients come to the clinic on Zion Avenue, they begin with a one-hour consultation with an oncologist. “We know what their diagnosis is, we know their stage of disease and we can give them a full consultation in terms of what the disease is, how to treat it and the treatment options,” Devitt says. “We let them know about our research program. We participate in 30 to 40 different clinical trials, so not only can we give them cutting-edge therapy, we have access at Kaiser to all the new drugs on the market.”
A chemotherapy class is offered for patients and their families every other Saturday so they may become familiar with where to go and what they will do. Support groups and social workers are available. Most of the treatment is done on an outpatient basis. With today’s therapies targeting smaller areas of a patient’s body, side effects are minimized. Kaiser pharmacists watch for drug interaction issues. Kaiser Hospice provides doctors to visit patients who are too ill to go to the hospital.
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