The HCA hospital in San Jose strives to be the leader in cancer care services for a community hospital

By Troy May
Good Samaritan Hospital, in South West San Jose, is installing a PET/CT scanner as part of a $26 million expansion of its diagnostic imaging and therapeutic technology.

With a GE Medical Systems PET/CT already installed, the scanner is one of three that will be linked together in a single building on the Good Sam campus. The hospital expects the PET/CT will be online mid-February after installation and calibration.

PET/CT combines PET and CT technologies into a single scan. PET (Positron Emission Tomography) creates images of metabolic activity in the body. CT (Computerized Tomography) creates images of the body’s anatomy.

When combined, PET/CT can provide 3-D images that help physicians pinpoint the location of tumors or discern the extent of damage to heart muscle after a heart attack.

The PET/CT project is part of the hospital’s capital investment program to enhance services to the community. In 2006, the hospital opened an acute in-patient rehabilitation unit, expanded with a fourth Cardiac Catheterization Lab, replaced its endoscopy suite and fully upgraded technology in its vascular lab. Good Samaritan has the only ICAVL-accredited community hospital-based vascular lab in Santa Clara County.

“Clearly the investment we are making in technology is not for technology sake,” said Leslie Kelsay, spokeswoman for Good Samaritan Hospital. “What we want to do is have an oncology program that provides all the services that people feel they have to go out of the city to get at an academic institution.”

To improve cancer surgery, the hospital also added DaVinci robotic-assisted surgery in June. Fewer than 600 hospitals in the nation are equipped with DaVinci. The hospital also introduced MammoSite radiation therapy for breast cancer, reducing treatment time from six to eight weeks to as short as five days.

Good Samaritan Hospital is owned by hospital chain HCA Inc., based in Nashville, Tenn., which funded the capital improvements.

“People strongly identify Stanford University and University of California San Francisco and other academic institution as exclusively being the best provider of cancer care when those services are available in their own neighborhood,” Kelsay said.

In the first quarter of 2007, the hospital expects to complete installation of a 3.0 Tesla MRI, a 64-slice CT and a leading edge angiography suite. The technology program will continue to improve the hospital’s services in cancer, cardiovascular and stroke care.

PET/CT scans are already offered at free standing diagnostic centers in the San Jose area, such as PET/CT Imaging of San Jose and Valley Radiology.

Dr. Keith Ford, radiologist at Good Samaritan Hospital with Radiologic Associates Medical Group, said the PET/CT scanner in addition to other diagnostic imaging tools recently installed, will offer physicians one center for their diagnostic services rather than have patients visit different sites.

Hospitals are adding the imaging technology because Medicare and private insurance has started to pay for more scans, and physician utilization of the technology is rising, said Dr. Ford.

“There is enough business to go around,” said Dr. Ford. “The technology is actually under utilized by physicians.” He has already attended seminars at UCLA for PET/CT training.

Good Sam has gained some notoriety for its recent improvements in technology, including being designated by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer as a Comprehensive Community Cancer Center. Last year, the hospital created a dedicated oncology unit with all private rooms and it was the only Bay Area hospital to receive the Commission’s Outstanding Achievement Award.

“For the community hospitals in the Bay Area, the new PET/CT will definitely put Good Samaritan in the lead as a comprehensive center for oncology,” Kelsay said.

Troy May is the editor of BAON. You can reach him at tmay@baoncologynews.com.

—By Troy May

Posted on January 19, 2007 03:25 PM