Varian October 2022
Intermountain Health Care is Utah’s largest healthcare system, serving more cancer patients than any other provider in the state of Utah. With nine clinics, it covers the state’s main population centers along the nearly 400-mile stretch of Interstate 15 from Logan in the north to St. George in the south. Until two years ago, the Intermountain network had one dedicated radiosurgery platform, located in Salt Lake City. For the southernmost patients needing radiosurgery for multitarget SRS, that could mean an eight-hour drive round trip for care—until a TrueBeam® radiotherapy system in St. George was outfitted with HyperArc® high-definition radiotherapy.
“We wanted to be able to provide patients with an opportunity to receive state-of-the-art, high-quality radiosurgery closer to home, if at all feasible,” said Brandon Barney, MD, Radiation Oncology. “HyperArc, we felt, provided us with this opportunity to provide an accurate, reproducible plan for brain radiosurgery.” Since Intermountain added HyperArc to its satellite clinic TrueBeam® systems, Intermountain patients with brain metastases are being treated locally.
“HyperArc has allowed us to expand patient access and to deliver the treatments we want to give to people and keep them closer to home,” said Craig Nielsen, Director for Radiation Oncology. However, expanding access means more than mere geographical location.
Access means freeing the radiation oncologist to see more patients. “HyperArc offers a significant improvement for physician workflow,” said Barney. “With HyperArc, my time at the console to treat multiple targets is only 15 or 20 minutes.”
Nielsen ties this clinical efficiency back to the concept of access. “Having more consulting appointments for patients to be seen by Dr. Barney is more valuable to our community. By minimizing the time that he spends supervising, we can maximize his utility to our patients. It’s a big difference,” Nielsen said.
Access also means improving the efficiency of treatment planning and delivery. “HyperArc has turned SRS from one of the most laborious treatment techniques to one of the easiest,” said Ryan Hecox, lead medical physicist. “The value of HyperArc comes from its regimented simplicity. You follow the guided path one decision at a time to a plan that you have confidence in.” Furthermore, Hecox believes that HyperArc workflows are engineered to improve consistency of care across all patients. “I want this same consistency and confidence for everything that we treat everywhere in the body.”
Beyond increasing access to radiosurgery for brain mets, HyperArc also offers an excellent patient experience. “I want to make sure that the patients I treat have the best possible experience they can in dealing with such challenging clinical situations,” concluded Dr. Barney. “HyperArc delivers outstanding radiotherapy treatment plans and does it in such a short period of time. The quick treatment delivery time achievable with HyperArc is optimal for patient convenience and comfort.”