St. Charles Bend and Advanced Specialty Care named
Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Bend, OR - The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery recently named St. Charles Bend, Advanced Specialty Care and Drs. Archer and Koning a Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence. The designation means patients can be assured that bariatric operations performed by surgeons in Bend are completed at a high level of care by physicians who have been extensively trained and have shown proven quality and safety results.
To qualify for the designation, ASC surgeons Dr. Stephen Archer and Dr. Marinus Koning, performed more than 125 bariatric operations in one year's time, showed low complication rates and solid follow-up with patients. The follow-up program includes psychiatric care as well as nutritional and exercise guidance.
In order for St. Charles Bend to receive the designation, the hospital made investments and improvements in equipment and technology and trained staff to be sensitive to bariatric patient needs.
"The Center of Excellence designation for St. Charles Bend and ASC demonstrates the hospital's and the surgeons' commitment to quality in bariatric surgery," Archer said. "It opens the door to more coverage for more patients."
Medicare only covers bariatric surgery if it is performed at a Center of Excellence, Archer explained. Other insurance providers are more likely to cover the operation when a center has received the designation. He praised the work of his colleague Koning to establish the bariatric surgery program in Central Oregon. Since its inception in 2002, the surgeons have performed nearly 500 bariatric operations totaling between 40,000 and 50,000 pounds of weight loss.
Dr. Koning says the process to receive the Center of Excellence designation took about 10 years.
"In 1998, I initially began learning about bariatric surgery in Europe," Koning said. "At that point, obesity was viewed very differently. It wasn't seen as a medical condition with a solution. Now people can approach it with the right tools and get successful results." Koning noted that bariatric surgery isn't for everyone and requires a serious commitment and lifestyle change for the patient.
"This is an exciting development for St. Charles Bend and ASC," said James A. Diegel FACHE, president and CEO of Cascade Healthcare Community. "This designation not only shows the hard work of many individuals in the Central Oregon medical community, it also demonstrates the high level of care available right here in the region."
Obesity is considered a national health issue, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention citing that 66 percent of all U.S. adults are overweight or obese. Morbid obesity is closely aligned with a number of serious conditions including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Patients who have undergone bariatric surgery by St. Charles Bend and ASC see about an 85 percent success rate with weight lose and approximately an 80 percent remission of obesity-related illness.
For more information on bariatric surgery please visit CascadeHealthCare.org or the Bariatric Section of this site.
About St. Charles Bend
St. Charles Bend serves more than 240,000 people in a 32,000 square mile area of Central and Eastern Oregon. As the regional referral center for specialty care, we treat patients from communities across the region. Our medical staff includes 250 physicians offering 40 specialties. St. Charles Bend is accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and is licensed for 261 beds, including a 18-bed inpatient rehabilitation center. The hospital is Oregon's only Level II Trauma Center east of the Cascades, providing top quality care in a compassionate and healing environment.
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July 31, 2008
