St. Luke’s Medical Center Inc. has established a Center for Comprehensive Breast Care in its hospitals in Bonifacio Global City in Taguig and in Quezon City.
The center mainly houses all of St. Luke’s experts and services on breast health, from early detection of cancer, diagnosis to treatment, rehabilitation and long-term recovery.
It has a multidisciplinary team of specialists-from surgeons to radiologists-working in harmony to provide seamless, coordinated care.
Maria Cecilia M. Pagdanganan, head of St. Luke’s breast center in Quezon City said they hope to cut the delays in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, both of which causes anxiety to the patient.
‘What we want to do is when the patient comes, the doctor is there, they can do the readings of the tests, among others. If the patient needs biopsy, we’ll do the biopsy. And then once it’s cancer.it should be managed by different specialists,’ Pagdanganan said.
She said once a patient comes in for consultation, a multi-disciplinary team will come up with a plan what they think is best for the patient.
‘Of course, not all recommendations will be followed, but included in the multidisciplinary team is the patient herself. She would want to decide on what needs to be done to go. Our concept is to shorten all of these things, such as laboratories, to prevent the patient from waiting for too long on the result, which is causing anxiety.’
Pagdanganan said the hospital took three years to launch the center as they have to gather institutional evidence on what’s best for the patient.
‘We also have a way of auditing the doctors. All doctors who will join us are willing to answer questions regarding on (his actions on) why did you not do this (process).’
The service could be more expensive compared to the other centers, but Pagdanganan said they will do what is best and provide the right treatment, which ‘at the end of the day is more economical for the patient.’
She said St. Luke’s is pushing for this type of patient treatment to be included in the packages of health maintenance organizations, as there are numerous medical studies that indicated that such strategy helps patients.