Clinical Component
The clinic is located on the 1st floor of Regional West Hospital, directly below the infusion clinic. There are plans to move the clinic space to the 2nd floor, so all cancer services are together. Our clinic is open Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. Regional West uses Cerner for EMR. All nurses are OCN-trained.
The position will be a 4-day work week, with 3 days of clinic and 1 day of outreach. The clinic sees 20-30 patients daily between the Oncologist and the AOCNP. The providers see patients for new visit, pre-chemo checks, educational visits, 1-month follow ups, 3-6 month follow ups, 1-year follow ups, and general follow up visits. The incoming provider can expect to see 15-20 patients per day in the clinic, with 1-2 of these being new patients and 15-20 patients per day during outreach.
Susan Schoeneman, MSN, ACNP-BC, AOCNP, sees patients in clinic Monday through Friday. She sees between 6-12 patients daily, Monday through Friday. She is also responsible for patient education on chemotherapy and survivorship and oversees the development and training of the oncology and chemotherapy nursing staff.
Providers can expect to see a variety of standard cases including Breast, Lung & Colon cancers. Regional West is able to keep most cases in house but will refer out to UCHealth locations in Colorado when needed.
The outreach locations are in Chadron (98 miles north), Alliance (53-miles East), Sidney (77-miles south), and Kimball (45-miles south). Chadron provides chemotherapy and sees 422 patients annually, an average of 17 patients per week. Sidney also provides chemotherapy and sees 437 patients annually, an average of 18 patients per week. Alliance sees 276 patients annually, an average of 12 per week and Kimball sees 63 annually, an average of 4 per week. Dr. Bjorling sees patients at 2-3 locations on each outreach day. The incoming provider does not need to follow the model that Dr. Bjorling has created.
We expect the outreach to continue, however Regional West/UCHealth will partner with the new hire to determine what outreach looks like. If the new provider does not want to do outreach, Regional West and UCHealth are amendable to that.
The infusion clinic is located on the second floor of the hospital, directly above the oncology clinic. It was built less than 4 years ago, and it is the largest and only infusion clinic in the region. It has 13 chairs in private rooms. It is fully staffed with an onsite pharmacy in the infusion center.
Regional West holds its Bi-weekly Tumor Boards on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month. The specialties that attend include Oncology, General Surgery, Pathology, Interventional Radiology, and ENT. All oncologists that are part of UCHealth have access to any and all UCHealth weekly tumor boards. These can be attended virtually as frequently as providers would like.
There are currently no clinical trials at Regional West. However, there are hundreds of clinical trials conducted at UCHealth. The incoming provider is welcome to actively enroll patients. You will have full access and support of specialists, clinical trials, and additional advanced oncology treatments through the partnership with UCHealth and the University of Colorado Cancer Center.
Dr. Mark Hartman is the radiation oncologist at Regional West. He works closely with medical oncology, general surgery, pathology, and other providers to provide radiation services including CT simulation, image-guided radiation therapy, low-dose and high-dose rate brachytherapy (LDR & HDR), 3D Conformal and Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT), and partial Breast Brachytherapy.
The surgical oncology cases are handled by four general surgeons, two neurosurgeons, two ENTs, one plastics and reconstructive surgeon, and a visiting gynecological oncologist. Dr. Saketh Guntupalli performs all Gynecology/Oncology cases once per month using the Da Vinci Xi robot.
Labs and all pathology are handled onsite.