I am not sure how many docs still do this, but I still read the actual hard copy of my New England Journal of Medicine, and that means I flip past ad pages with smiling grandfathers playing with grandchildren thanks to supercalifragilistic products on my way to scholarly papers with tables and figures. But this time, I stopped in puzzlement when I came across an ad from Intermountain.
Intermountain is a health system based in Utah, highly respected for its sound approach to quality and cost control[1], but not broadly well known for cancer care in the way of centers like Dana Farber or Sloan Kettering. Digging further by going to the website uncovers the actual offering which is a streamlined 5 step process:
- Send tumor sample
- Deep sequencing of 96 key cancer genes
- Genomic data analysis
- Tumor board makes a treatment recommendation
- Facilitated procurement of the relevant cancer drugs
Turn-around time is about two weeks, fast enough to wait for the information before starting a regimen.
