Mayo Clinic announced Tuesday that the Coborn Cancer Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota, part of the CentrCare Health System, is the first member of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Care Network.
The Mayo Clinic Cancer Care Network is part of the broader Mayo Clinic Care Network that works on the Affiliated Practice Network model to expand care in local communities by connecting healthcare providers in those areas to the expertise at Mayo.
In announcing the collaboration, Dr. David Hayes, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, stressed the importance of how the future of healthcare is going to depend on the “integration of knowledge and expertise.” He added that technology is allowing “patients to stay locally and not have to go anywhere” to get state-of-the-art care.
Patients benefit because knowledge can be shared. More specifically, members of Mayo Clinic Care Network, which launched in September, can access the following:
- eConsult brings the expertise of a Mayo medical specialist to your community, without the need for an additional appointment or travel.
- AskMayoExpert is a Web-based information system that allows doctors to quickly connect with expert clinical information on hundreds of medical conditions at any hour of the day or night.
- Business process and administrative consulting gives access to peers, tools and expertise in business processes to help members implement and realize the value of Mayo Clinic’s integrated clinical care and practice models.
In the future, other specialty networks may be developed in the fields of cardiology, cardiovascular care and neurology, Hayes said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
[Photo Credit: Rawich]
