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Catawba Valley Medical Center

Working Remotely, Catawba Valley chooses Elekta Software’s ASP for Cancer Registry

 
  • Challenge: Desire to work remotely, including offsite, for collection of Class of Case 6 patient information.
  • Results: Ability to work productively from home, with easily accessible, excellent customer service.
 Catawba Valley Medical Center


Catawba Valley Medical Center is a 286-bed hospital that treats a total of nearly 900 new patients each year. Located in Hickory, North Carolina, Catawba Valley Medical Center uses Elekta for its Cancer Registry. With Elekta's Cancer Registry software, the center now has a powerful resource for maintaining valuable case data for treatment outcome evaluation and export to centralized registries.

Deborah Poovey, C.T.R., says Catawba Valley began using Elekta in 2000, after a very smooth installation. “We use Elekta's remote ASP capability for our Cancer Registry work. We have three people in our cancer registry department, and we’re all working remotely.”

The customer service representatives are the cornerstone of Elekta's relationship with Catawba Valley Medical Center, says Ms. Poovey. “They are absolutely wonderful, extremely helpful and responsive. Any questions or problems we have, they are very prompt with turnaround and problem-solving.” This is a vital part of working remotely; Elekta's customer service representative has always put her in touch with the right person for her needs. “And Elekta handles all the updates,” she adds.

Ms. Poovey says there are several Elekta Cancer Registry features that she appreciates. “The Case Finding feature is invaluable,” she says. “We can now download our information quickly and easily, where we used to have to do it manually. The DeathMatch module is very helpful as well, because it automates the identification of deceased patients for the registry.”

Elekta's Registry ASP enables Ms. Poovey to do offsite collection of Class of Case 6 patient information, for those patients who prefer to be treated in their physicians’ offices instead of the hospital.

“Class of Case 6 patients are diagnosed and treated for their first course of treatment in the physicians’ offices. These patients choose not to have treatment, or have hormone therapy only, and can be treated at their physicians’ offices instead of the hospital. This is especially useful for patients whose physicians have advanced equipment for treatment in their offices. The patients don’t have to come to the hospital unless they have a progression or recurrence of their disease.”

The Elekta Cancer Registry ASP makes working remotely very straightforward. “We have always found Elekta’s Cancer Registry system to be extremely reliable and user-friendly,” says Ms. Poovey. “It allows high productivity, even when working from home, and the educational opportunities available for client services reduce the expense and inconvenience of traveling.”
 

  

Site Snapshot

 

Location: Hickory, North Carolina, USA

Center Type: Progressive, 286-bed Hospital

Number of Locations: 1

Clinical with Elekta Software: 2000