As a reporter I often interview health professionals for Wellness Wednesday here at Intermountain Medical Center in the heart of the Salt Lake Valley. But a lot of you live hundreds of miles from IMC, or the Huntsman Cancer institute. But did you know you don't have to leave home to get top notch care?
“Probably my favorite story was when I got on to do a video visit with a patient of mine. And he was sitting on the top of a mountain 100 miles away from any civilization, and we were talking about his prostate cancer, and how good it was going. And I thought, Man, this is just an incredible thing that I never want, like five-year-old version of me that wanted to be a doctor would never have imagined anything like this would be possible.”
Dr. Brandon Barney is medical director of oncology at Intermountain Cancer Center at Utah Valley Hospital, and his job gets better with technology. That’s because his patients don’t have to cancel that ATV trip to make an appointment, and his fellow doctors can pursue their medical dreams while living in their hometowns.
Barney said, “One of my colleagues that I was kind of directly responsible for recruiting. He's up in Logan. His name is Ryan Bair. And Ryan is a Logan boy through and through. But Ryan received some of the best world's best training to be an oncologist. He went to University of Utah for medical school, he went to the University of Chicago for residency. And we were so incredibly fortunate that when Ryan Bair was looking for a job, he wanted to live in Logan and take care of the community in Logan.”
Dr. Barney really lights up when he talks about what other staff members can do for his patients, whether it’s in Logan, Utah Valley, Salt Lake City, Sanpete County, St. George…all over.
“If you've known anybody that's gone through cancer treatments, it's an incredibly difficult environment to navigate. There's all these different appointments where you're going to have different things done. And the nurse navigator is basically like the patient's personal assistant,” said Barney.
Barney continued, “We have financial navigators, because we know cancer is an incredible financial burden on patients. And those financial navigators can help with things as simple as like, hey, I need a gas. I need some reimbursement for the gas that I'm putting money into getting to and from the hospital.”
Barney knows cancer complicates life, and he wants his patients to get help beyond the treatment that he provides.
“One of my favorite things to tell patients as we’re going through all of this in a one-hour time slot, is to tell them look, at this point the burden of trying to get where you need to get and get what you need to have done is no longer on you. That burden is on us. And we’re going to make sure that for you navigating this is going to be as simple as getting in the limousine door when we open it,” said Barney.
That is a powerful thing to tell somebody. We won't hold you to the limo.
Yeah, may not be quite that nice. I don't even know if the limos what people want anymore. They probably want a hammer or something. But
yeah, I think I think everyone seems impressed by big black SUVs.
At Utah Valley Hospital, Dr. Barney is part of a multi-disciplinary comprehensive cancer care center, and they can reach out to dozens of smaller hospitals or clinics around Utah. That and TeleHealth also means specialist from Salt Lake, or Logan, or Saint George can help you wherever you are.
