News

Innovative Technology from Varian Medical Systems Delivers Precise Cancer Treatments

Radiation Oncology of North Florida is pleased to announce the addition of the Halcyon™, an image-guided radiotherapy system. Patients will no longer need to travel outside of the Lake City area for highly-precise and advanced radiation treatment.

The Halcyon Radiation Therapy System allows for accurate high-dose delivery of radiotherapy to tumors with minimal exposure of normal tissue. The Halcyon system treats multiple tumor sites including skin, brain, head and neck, lung, breast, liver, pancreas, gastric, rectum, bladder, and prostate.

Treatment times and overall duration of the treatment plan, are significantly shorter with the Halcyon™. Using image-guided intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), or volumetric arc therapy (VMAT), it can deliver up to 4-times faster treatment than the standard technology. The system captures either two-dimensional, or cone beam CT images for guidance in less than 15 seconds. Delivering varying intensities of radiation, treatment times last approximately two minutes per session.

Physicians and staff members at Radiation Oncology of North Florida are pleased to bring this new technology to Lake City and the surrounding communities.

“The Halcyon system allows us to deliver fast, high-quality treatments that our patients need with the comfort and convenience that our patients deserve to win the fight against cancer,” said board certified radiation oncologist, Mark E. Thompson, DO.

For increased patient comfort, Halcyon™operates very quietly with a couch that is low to the ground for easy patient access. The spacious, 100 cm wide circular bore that the patient passes into during treatment is larger than those on standard CT machines.

To facilitate a closer connection between patient and therapist during a Halcyon™ treatment, the system incorporates a couch-mounted camera that travels with the patient and a two-way intercom making it easy for the therapist to monitor and converse with the patient receiving treatment.

Radiation Oncology of North Florida (386) 755-0601 is now accepting patients for treatment with the Halcyon™system.

Cancer Care of North Florida has received re-certification by the QOPI® Certification Program, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Association for Clinical Oncology (the Association) and an affiliate of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (the Society).

The QOPI® Certification Program builds on the Society’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®), providing a three-year certification for outpatient hematology-oncology practices that meet nationally recognized standards for quality cancer care.

“This re-certification showcases our continued commitment to extend high-quality care to our patients and their loved ones. We are very proud to achieve this re-certification from the Association.”

-Waseem Khan, MD, oncologist at Cancer Care of North Florida

 

To achieve certification, Cancer Care of North Florida participated in a voluntary comprehensive site assessment and successfully met clearly specified standards and objectives of the QOPI Certification Program.

“QOPI Certification is awarded to oncology practices that have made an extraordinary commitment to going above and beyond in the provision of high-quality cancer care,” said 2021-2022 Board Chair of the Association Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO. “A practice that achieves this certification is continuously tracking and analyzing data to evaluate and improve processes leading to the highest-quality cancer care possible for our patients.”

The QOPI® Certification Program, LLC was launched in January 2010, and over 300 practices are currently certified. Cancer Care of North Florida has continued to meet re-certification since it was first certified in 2011.

This certification for outpatient oncology practices is the first program of its kind for oncology in the United States and in 2016 was expanded internationally. Practices that are QOPI® Certified successfully met the standards and objectives of the QOPI® Certification Program, which includes scoring above the threshold on the key QOPI® quality measures and meeting chemotherapy safety standards established by the Society and the Oncology Nursing Society.

To become QOPI® Certified, practices submit to an evaluation of their entire practice and documentation standards. QOPI® Certification Program staff and volunteer committee members conduct an on-site survey, verify that the evaluation and documents are correct, and determine if practices meet core standards in the following areas of treatment:

• Creating a safe environment—staffing, competencies, and general policy
• Treatment planning, patient consent, and education
• Ordering, preparing, dispensing, and administering chemotherapy
• Monitoring after chemotherapy is administered, including adherence, toxicity, and complications
• Treatment planning
• Staff training and education
• Chemotherapy orders and drug preparation
• Patient consent and education
• Safe chemotherapy administration
• Monitoring and assessment of patient well-being

For more information on QOPI Certification and all of ASCO’s innovative quality improvement programs, please visit the link, Quality Programs .