Stephanie Wright

Doing Wright by LTFU patients

Stephanie Wright helps patients navigate the road to health

Responsive, team-oriented care for post-transplant patients is the goal of the Long-Term Follow-Up Unit (LTFU). It's Project Coordinator Stephanie Wright's job to keep a close eye on the details.

"When patients come to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for a transplant, a lot of them are really impressed with the team approach," Wright said. "They're taken care of on every level the whole time they're here. They expect the same attention after they leave, and that's what our office is trying to do. We want to provide as much advice as we can for them and their hometown physicians."

Wright's ability to help post-transplant patients navigate their lives as healthily as possible is a credit to her 11-year history at Fred Hutchinson, which joined University of Washington Medicine and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center to form the Alliance in 1998. When she joined Fred Hutchinson as a transplant team coordinator in 1994, Wright arrived with experience in patient-care administration from a five-year stint in the U.S. Army, followed by jobs at cardiology and orthopedic practices.

"I would never change having worked as a team coordinator first, because I think that really helped give me a foundation of working with patients," she said.

In her next position, Wright conducted bone-marrow donor searches for patients who did not have matched sibling donors. From there, she went to work for Fred Hutchinson's Clinical Immunogenetics lab, which conducts tests to evaluate patient and donor proteins that specify tissue type. Wright pulled together the results of these tests so clinical staff could determine the best donor match for a patient.

Wright began her work with LTFU in the fall. In her project coordinator role, she feels life has come full circle. "Talking to patients for whom I searched and coordinated marrow transplants has been wonderful," she said. "I like to hear how they're doing."

Wright helps manage the department and answers phone calls from patients and doctors. She is also responsible for gathering the test results gleaned from one or two dozen patients' departure work-ups each month. She presents the test results to an attending physician and makes recommendations about follow-up care, especially for treatment of graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD). All return visits and patients' lab samples are coordinated through the LTFU. "I think we work really well as a team," Wright said about her co-workers. "It's just a great group."

A strong believer in setting goals, Wright is pursuing a master's degree in business administration with an emphasis on health-care management. She and her husband enjoy a busy life with their two teenagers and volunteer activities. She runs four miles each day and aims to run her first marathon this year.

Years of working with cancer patients have given Wright an appreciation for their resiliency and long-term needs. "Our post-transplant patients can have all types of issues — from GVHD to nothing — and when there's a problem, it involves multiple systems," she said.

Wright knows her department's work is valued by both patients and community doctors. "I haven't talked to a patient yet who doesn't appreciate the resources they can get from our office," she said.