Latest / Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast / Dr. Freya Schnabel, Director of Breast Surgery at NYU Medical Center

Transcript

Dr. Freya Schnabel, Director of Breast Surgery at NYU Medical Center · Becker’s Healthcare - Clinical Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  - Welcome everyone to the Becker's
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  Healthcare podcast series.
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  I'm Mariah Mohammed, writer
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  and moderator with Becker's Healthcare,
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  and I'm absolutely thrilled to have with me today Dr.
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  Freya Schnebel, director
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  of Breast Cancer at NYU Lone Medical Center.
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  Doctor, it's very nice to have you on the podcast today.
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  To get us started, would you mind please introducing
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  yourself and telling us a bit about your background?
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  - Thank you so much for having me.
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  And I, I am the director
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  of breast surgery here at NYU Langone
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  Health in, uh, New York.
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  So in terms of background, I am, um, an a OA alum
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  of the NYU School of Medicine,
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  and I completed my surgical training here at NYU.
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  Um, after doing a research fellowship, I spent the
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  more than 15 years at the Columbia University Medical
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  Center, and at the end of that time, I was the chief
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  of the section of breast surgery
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  before coming back here to NYU
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  to assume a leadership role in breast surgery.
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  Since 2007, my clinical
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  and research interests include both breast cancer
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  and women at high risk for the disease.
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  - Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving us
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  that background about what you do.
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  Um, and to jump right into the first question,
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  the first thing I wanted to ask you is
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  what are your top priorities right now?
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  - So I, I think it's a really good question
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  because obviously healthcare is so, uh,
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  rapidly evolving right now, and breast cancer, um,
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  and high risk patients per se,
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  are a very rapidly evolving area of healthcare.
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  So I, I think our top priorities right now are spending time
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  concentrating on how to increase the efficiency of the way
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  that we deliver care in diagnostic workup
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  and management and so on.
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  Um, and of course treatment while maintaining high
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  patient satisfaction.
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  So we wanna be as efficient as we can for our processes,
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  but we wanna make sure that our patients feel like we are
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  paying good attention to them
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  and they are being well cared for at the same time.
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  And I think that is really our top priority.
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  In addition, like a lot of healthcare systems
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  around the country, our system is growing all the time.
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  We're adding new locations, we're adding new practices,
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  we're adding new facilities.
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  And so, uh, an enormous challenge for us right now is how
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  to, um, create standard processes across
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  this large and enlarging network to make sure
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  that patients get the same high standard of care
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  wherever they are in our, uh, enterprise.
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  - Got it. Got it. Yeah, thank you so much
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  for giving us that explanation.
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  And how are your organ organization evolve over the next two
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  to three years, would you say?
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  - So I think just as a segue to the last comment
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  that I made, we really are working on this idea
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  of standardization across the network.
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  Um, everyone has to be on the same electronic medical record
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  to allow for, uh, information sharing in a seamless way.
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  We wanna make sure that patients have equal access across
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  all of our sites to the same, um, interventions,
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  the same imaging, the the same biopsy interventions,
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  the same level of care,
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  including things like clinical trials
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  across the entire enterprise.
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  And that's a big job.
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  That's not, uh, it doesn't sound easy
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  and it's certainly not even as easy as it sounds.
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  So anticipating even further growth across this enterprise
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  within the next several years, we have to make sure that
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  as we grow, we create consistency, good access to care.
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  Everybody can get
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  what they need when they need it at an appropriate site
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  for them to seek and get their care.
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  - Yeah, yeah, absolutely, definitely sounds very essential
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  and, you know, impactful
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  to what's happening right now in society.
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  Doctor, the last thing I wanted to ask you
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  before I let you go is, what is one change you
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  or your team has made that yielded great results?
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  - So I, I love that question
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  because we make a lot of changes
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  and changes so often incrementally done, um,
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  where you see small improvements that, um,
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  it's a great thing to think about what we did
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  that created really big wins.
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  So one improvement
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  that we've made over the last several years has to do
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  with the conduct of, uh,
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  breast surgery when we're operating on patients
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  who have problems within their breasts
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  that are not palpable, that are not clinically evident,
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  that we cannot find, um, by palpating the breast, and that
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  therefore require a process called localization prior
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  to their surgery to make sure
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  that the surgeon can target the correct area in the breast.
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  Uh, the old method for localization
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  involved a pretty involved process that patients had to go
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  through on the day of their surgery,
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  and that wasn't optimal from an
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  efficient process perspective.
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  It required patients to go
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  to multiple locations within the institution prior
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  to their surgery and all of this
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  at a time when they're fasting in advance of their surgery.
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  So a number of years ago, we were very early adopters
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  of a technique of wire free localization
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  where we decoupled this localization process from the day
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  of surgery so that patients could have a,
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  a localization process done
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  with inserting what's called a reflector into the area
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  that needed to be operated on,
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  on a different day when they weren't fasting,
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  when they could do it at their own convenience.
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  And this uncomplicated the day of surgery for the patient,
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  it made our overall process more efficient
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  by reducing delays in the operating room,
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  which are certainly costly and not patient friendly.
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  Um, and it allowed us to make our entire process easier
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  and simpler for people on the day of their surgeries.
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  That was a big win.
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  Another, uh, process improvement that we made that I think,
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  um, is gonna be expanded,
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  but has certainly been another big win, is to
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  simplify the process of genetic testing, especially
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  for patients with new breast cancer diagnoses,
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  where the results of testing can be really critical in
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  decision making for their treatment.
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  So we've gone to, uh, a simplified point
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  of care testing process, which, um, has allowed us
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  to really jumpstart getting samples drawn as submitted
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  for testing, which the turnaround can take up to 10 days.
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  So we, uh, simplified that process,
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  put it back into the surgeon's offices,
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  and, uh, allowed our patients to then get that information,
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  um, already pending
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  and cooking so that by the time we're ready
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  to confirm our surgical decision making,
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  the results are available.
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  Um, that's been really very doctor friendly
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  and very patient friendly,
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  and it's something that I,
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  I think we're gonna see expanded
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  throughout our entire network.
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  - Yeah, for sure. Thank you so, so much
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  for giving us tho those great insights
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  and for those final thoughts, doctor,
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  it's definitely been an amazing and informative discussion.
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  So again, I wanna thank you so much
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  for coming on Becker's Healthcare.
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  We really do appreciate it
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  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  - Thank you very much. A pleasure to be here
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  and uh, I'd love to connect with you again soon
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  as well. Have a great day.
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  - Thank you.