Up until 2021, Drs. Winnie Henderson and Chris Kollmorgen were part of a surgical specialist group, here in Lane County for many years. In their daily work, they always set their sights on providing the best in medical care. Over time, they developed a growing concern with their more tangled and bureaucratic health care delivery environment. As generalists, they performed all kinds of general surgery, but gradually, they sub specialized, developing a primary focus as breast surgical oncologists. They also noticed that their patients had become more anxious, more medically complex, and more often disadvantaged due to their social determinants of health. After years of watching this unfold, they began their journey of finding a better way. Here in their own words, they identify solutions to these intricate problems.
How can we minimize stress to our patients and promote healing while finding our interactions more rewarding? “The surgical aspect of breast oncology is often traumatic, stressful, and too rushed. To help these patients through their journey in a “minimally invasive” way, we realized soon that we needed to form a dedicated team of specialized medical assistants, a nurse navigator, data collection specialists, and evidence-based integrative care specialists. Our team approach is key to patient wellness. Our new team environment is called Oregon Surgical Wellness.
How do we track our data to ensure we offer the very best reproducible care possible to our patients? “Quality data reporting is a commonplace conversation. Payers have threatened doctors repeatedly over the last decade, claiming that they must produce quality data to receive payment. As it turns out, producing quality data is not so easy. Most independent practices and nonacademic centers, either don’t have the time or lack the financial incentives to collect data. Thankfully, we don’t have those issues. Our highly trained data collection specialists have registered over 3800 patients on breast, endocrine, hernia and general surgery national quality outcomes registries. We compare it to wearing a fit bit that tracks your physiology over time. You begin to see what works and what does not work regarding your health. The same goes for data tracking in the medical field. These registries are invaluable to us, as they help us understand our trends in care. We go this extra mile because it makes us better.
How do we support the whole patient during treatment and promote the highest quality of life for them in the future? “Personal choices are a huge part of the healthcare continuum. When a patient receives a life-threatening diagnosis, such as breast cancer, they are faced with some hard choices to make on how to treat their cancer best. Oftentimes, patients don’t have a lot of time to decide and are plunged into an overwhelming sea of information that may or may not even be pertinent to their situation. As breast surgical oncologists, it’s up to us to educate them on their choices, and it is our goal that they select not only a healthy choice but also one driven by science and sound medical data. We use a method called “patient shared decision making,” serving as a research site for the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center for Shared Decision Making. patient’s satisfaction with their outcome is greater when they decide based on their personal needs, not the doctor’s. Most doctors stop there and leave out one of the most crucial parts; preventative care and survivorship. By the time the patient has a disease that requires surgery, the problems that promoted that disease’s manifestation have been there for quite some time.”
How do we: Maximize the healing potential before, during, and after treatment while also helping to prevent patients from getting a similar illness in the future? “Our surgical skill can only solve a portion of the bigger problem. Rather than merely “cutting things out,” how do we help our patients understand some of the things that led to the problem and offer prevention choices? Our surgical clinic will pioneer the offering of on-site integrative medical care. It was natural that we came together with Pacific Integrative Oncology due to our shared vision and goals. Drs. Dunn and Niesley focus on diet, supplements, acupuncture, and botanical medicine. This opportunity to focus on the intersection between evidence-based medicine from all angles of care is truly unique in our community. We are confident that this new venture will result in a more rewarding experience for both the patient and healer. While our primary focus will be breast surgical oncology, we have also used our model very successfully with endocrine surgery, hernia repair, robotic and general surgery. As we start the new year with a fresh perspective, we sincerely look forward to working with you and appreciate our medical community’s support.”
