And clearly, everybody wanted the same thing. If we can read it accurately and give the woman her results much sooner, we know it's going to be better for her. It's not just reading the mammogram or the pathology slide accurately. That allowed us to go forward with something that was a very personal issue for me. So, I did have control over the physician components of pretty much every step of the way. I was fortunate in that, at that time, our regional radiology and pathology departments both reported up to me. So each step required a different solution to be put in place. It's not: Do a screening mammogram and then you've got your diagnosis.” The process has several steps and each step, has-historically-its own reasons for why it takes so long. It was over several years that these changes took place, because the diagnosis of breast cancer is a very long, multistep process. Wollman: This wasn't a snap your fingers and, overnight, it happened type of thing. He recently spoke with the AMA about putting the systems in place to provide patients with quick results for their mammography screenings.ĪMA: How did this program come together and how were you able to break down the silos that are frequently a barrier to such collaboration?ĭr. Wollman is a third-generation physician and a second-generation Permanente doctor, following his father who was a Permanente urologist in San Diego. ![]() Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group is a member of the AMA Health System Program, which provides enterprise solutions to equip leadership, physicians and care teams with resources to help drive the future of medicine.ĭr. Wollman is the associate medical director for government relations, radiation oncology, pharmacy and pathology for Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, which has more than 1,700 physicians caring for more than 825,000 Kaiser Permanente members in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Komen organization, after a screening, a wait of up to two weeks can be expected-and by federal law is allowed to be up to 30 days.ĭr. Times differ for receiving mammography results from a routine screening compared with a diagnostic test prompted by finding a lump during a self-exam. Wollman and his teams designed, more than 90% of Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group patients get their screening mammography results in less than 30 minutes from the completion of the mammogram, with an average time of 12.8 minutes. “We worked to figure out what can we do to decrease the number of sleepless nights for our patients who might be fearful of the disease.”īecause of a program Dr. ![]() Wollman, whose mother died of breast cancer. “Women worried about breast cancer might literally have sleepless nights worrying about it,” said Dr. “I know firsthand how this can be a very scary disease,” said Bruce Wollman, MD, a radiologist with the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group based in Rockville, Maryland.
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