The McLeod Center for Cancer Treatment and Research became a Novalis Certified Cancer Center after third-party radiation experts measured their performance. It was a voluntary audit that tested McLeod on patient safety and treatment quality.
“As a department and as an organization, we decided that to provide the highest quality radiation and therapy, particularly with respect to stereotactic surgery and radiation therapy, this was a necessary step for us to make sure that all our clinical practices were validated,” said Dr.Tobin Hyman. He is the Chief Medical Physicist for McLeod Regional Medical Center and pushed for getting the accreditation.
McLeod is the only hospital in South Carolina with the accreditation. There are only eight Novalis Certified Centers in the United States and 46 worldwide.
For one local Florence patient, having top-rated health care in her backyard is significant.
“As somebody who has to work full-time, It’s very important that I’m here in the are. I feel like it was an answered prayer,” said Amanda Deaver.
According to the Novalis website, the accreditation program promotes the delivery of cranial and body radiosurgery at the highest level of competency and expertise. It also gives McLeod access to new ideas on cancer treatment, ways to improve treatment safety and on how to make current techniques better.
Stereotactic radiosurgery treats cancerous tumors in the brain and spine, Hyman said. It helps the McLeod Radiation Oncology team perform accurate radiation with less treatments.
The team is also accredited by the American College of Radiology Radiation Oncology Accreditation program and plans to continue improving care.
“This is just step one in a series of steps that we are going to continue down, continue the journey on in order to make sure that we’re accomplishing our goal.”
