NHC, Huntsman team up in West Wendover Mammovan stop

On Wednesday, the Nevada Health Centers Mammovan and the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute mobile unit collaborated in a community event, offering walk-in breast cancer mammogram screenings.

Also present at the event was a massive pair of inflatable lungs, supplied by the Nevada Cancer Coalition, as well as an inflatable colon tunnel from Utah.

Nevada Health Centers spokesperson Carrie Tallman said plans for the day were to “screen as many women as possible and create awareness about the importance of cancer screenings, one of which is mammography.”

“As we wind down Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I think it’s a good opportunity to remind women that, if they haven’t had their baseline mammogram and they’re 40 years or older, it’s important to do that. But there are lots of other cancer screenings that are equally important as people age,” Tallman said.

“With Wendover having a part of town on the Nevada side and a part of town on the Utah side, our practice manager Kerrie Preston led the charge to make sure that people from the entire town have access, because there are some limitations, like with insurance,” Tallman said. “For our Nevada Health Centers Mammovan, we screen Nevada residents.”

But Utah residents on the eastern side of town needed tests, too.

“Our whole mission is to remove barriers. So we’re removing barriers for women on the Utah side who are getting mammograms by inviting the University of Utah Huntsman mobile to come out as well,” she said.

“Both sides can get care, whether you live on the Nevada side or the Utah side. This is a really exciting day for us,” Preston, the practice manager of the NHC clinic in West Wendover, said.

“We work really hard to make sure we are available to our patients who need to come in,” Preston said. “We keep hours that work well for them and we’re also able to offer a lot of different services for our patients,” such as mental health services, she said. \

Also, Preston added, “We’re really excited to be able to offer mammograms for people who need them, so they don’t have to travel out of town to get those services. And we do a telehealth service, too, so patients don’t actually have to come into the clinic to receive care. They can be seen from their homes as well.”

Preston explained how she was able to pull off the Nevada and Utah collaboration.

“I made a couple of phone calls and we were able to get the team together. We’ve been meeting jointly virtually for a couple of months before this day. We all got to meet in person here.”

For a moving clinic on wheels, maintenance is important, said Mammovan Program Manager Rhonda Johnson, who heads up a team of 10.

Making sure generators are in shape is also crucial, as well as “making sure to have clinics available and full with patients as we travel,” she said.

“For October, we are usually very busy. I believe we’re going to hit about 300 mammograms this month. So, we’re doing fantastic,” Johnson said. “We’re coming up on the last two days here. We’ve already seen 10 women this morning.”

She said Nevada Health Centers clinic in West Wendover is an important resource. “Being a border town, we have different needs for different women here,” Johnson said, “whether it’s an insurance difference, whether it’s just the residence and where they live.

“We had great power right here to bring two mobile units and two states together to help these women out, regardless of their ability to pay for mammograms or what insurance they have,” she said.

Nevada Health Centers has supplied grant money to cover patients without insurance, Tallman explained.

“We’re going on our 25th year of operation,” Johnson said of the Mammovan, noting how it travels all over Nevada on the regular. The unit contains a full-fledged office, “just like a brick-and-mortar, except we’re a little bit more cozy, because we don’t have quite as much room,” Johnson said. The front of the van has a registration area run by receptionist Valeria Cervantes and a waiting room.

“As you go back past the pink-and-white polka dotted curtain, that’s back where the mammogram actually takes place with our mammographers,” Johnson said. “We have the best scanning equipment you can find,” supplied by Hologic. “Anytime you come on here, you’re getting the same great quality you get from brick-and-mortar.”

Tallman said result time varies. “It’s normally within seven to 10 days that your results would be mailed to you, especially if they’re normal. But, if something’s flagged and there might be an issue, a woman would hear within 48 hours,” she said.

“One of the fantastic things to know about the Mammovan is that we do run on about 95% donated money,” Johnson said. The waiting room has an illustration of a tree on the wall, with donors’ names on the leaves. Also, the outside of the van lists “legacy donors, who have given upwards of $100,000 or higher over the lifetime,” including the Vons Foundation, Smith’s, the American Cancer Society and the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

“They keep us on the road, they keep these women safe and they are the reason that we’re able to provide early detection,” Johnson said.

On the Utah side of the event, patient coordinator Zulma Alvarez registers patients and works out their insurance at the front of the Huntsman Cancer Institute mobile unit. Then, they receive a screening from mammographer Sarah Madsen.

“I schedule our vehicle all throughout Utah. I also take care of our second vehicle, which is in production,” Lynette Phillips, manager of community cancer screening for Huntsman Cancer Institute, explained.

“Personally, I am in charge of increasing cancer screening rates across the five-state area for Huntsman Cancer,” which includes Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, designated by the National Cancer Institute, Phillips said.

“We can only take our mobile mammography throughout Utah for licensing reasons — but I work with all the other state coalitions and other groups working in those states to help increase screening, which is why we’re doing what we’re doing today,” she said.

“It’s been such a productive year,” Phillips said. “Our second vehicle will be delivered, probably in another month. That’s huge. And then, we have screened over 7,000 people in the last five years, just on our single bus. So, we’ve been really busy.”

Tallman said mammography screenings are “typically for women who are 40 years and older. So, a baseline mammogram should be at 40 years old and then every year after that. What they do is, they compare the films to make sure there aren’t any changes in the breast tissue.”

She said the screening doesn’t take too much time.

“It’s a very fast appointment. It’s only about 20 minutes long, so it’s really important that women take time for themselves,” she explained. “I think a lot of times, they get caught up in being caregivers for children and their parents. But if they aren’t able to take care of themselves, they obviously can’t take care of those children and parents as they age. So, it’s important for women to take time for themselves. This is a very quick, easy, painless procedure.

“If people want to support mammography screening for women who may not otherwise be able to afford it, for the Nevada Health Centers Mammovan, an easy way to do that is to buy a license plate that has the pink ribbon on it in support of breast cancer. A portion of that goes to our program for women to receive free mammography screening,” Tallman said.