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Improved Cancer Treatments Spur New Centers

Posted on: Monday, 9 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Quinn, William T

Health

Hospitals around the state rush to expand and upgrade their therapeutic offerings

WHEN IT OPENED IN 1998, the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center at Morristown Memorial Hospital was a state-of-the-art treatment facility. But in just a few years, demand for its outpatient services had grown to the point where the center was spilling out of its still-new home. Atlantic Health, the corporate parent of Morristown Memorial, was soon working on expansion plans.

Last month, a $20 million enlargement of the center opened its doors, adding two new floors and 30,000 sq. ft. of additional office and treatment space. LydiaTarta, Atlantic Health's director of oncology services, says Morristown Memorial was trying to prepare for a projected 38% increase in the number of patients expected to seek care at the Simon center between 2003 and 2013.

It is hardly alone: Newark Beth Israel Medical Center is about to start construction on an $11 million expansion of its cancer center, Hackensack University Medical Center is working on plans for a $100 million expansion that will include a bigger cancer-care center and Somerset Medical Center has begun work on a new $20 million building that will be home to its first dedicated cancer-care center.

Underlying these investments are improvements in cancer treatment that have created a growing pool of survivors who need chronic care, generally on an outpatient basis.

Somerset Medical Center currently sees between 650 and 700 patients each year with newly diagnosed cancers, while Morristown's Simon center sees about 1,700. Newark Beth Israel sees about 1,600 new cancer cases.

All say patient volume has increased in recent years. And these centers, with their combination of specialist physicians and the facilities to deliver radiation and chemotherapy treatments under one roof, have proven very attractive to patients.

Anything that saves a cancer patient avoid from having to travel to one town to see an oncologist, another to receive a regimen of radiation and possibly a third to undergo chemotherapy, is desirable, says Kathy Van Camp, chief operating officer at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville. "Cancer is a disease that doesn't travel well," she says. "It's very debilitating; the treatments are very debilitating."

"One-stop shopping...is a tremendous benefit to the patient, to simplify their lives," says David Momrow, senior vice president of cancer control for the American Cancer Society's New York and New Jersey unit.

The quality of cancer care being delivered locally is improving, he says, at the same time that the disease is "increasingly being managed on an outpatient basis."

The Carol C. Simon Cancer Center quickly outgrew its first building.

Dr. Alice Cohen, the director of hematology and oncology at Newark Beth Israel, attributes the increase in patients to better screening techniques and new treatment regimens such as improved chemotherapy for lung cancer patients or monoclonal-antibody drugs for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients that have increased survival rates.

The new or expanded cancer-care centers going up around the state offer patients a mix of the latest technology, comforting atmospheric touches and support services aimed at making their treatments more palatable. So Morristown's center features both image-guided linear accelerators that can precisely target radiation therapy and a lobby that is the setting for live concerts on Wednesday afternoons.

Somerset hopes to lure patients to what it is calling the Steeplechase Cancer Center with both digital mammography machines and a menu of support services that includes tai-chi, yoga, massage and music therapies. It also aims to give its lobby the feel of a Vermont ski lodge complete with a stone hearth and a fire that is always going.

Van Camp says the center will be called Steeplechase to honor the Far Hills Race Meeting Association that has raised $16 million for the hospital through its annual steeplechase races held at Moorland Farms in Far Hills. To carry out the theme, she says the lobby will feature a bronze statue of a horse leaping a hedge along with a case to display the Race Meeting Association's trophies.

E-mail to wquinn@njbiz.com

Copyright Snowden Publications, Inc. Dec 12, 2005

Source: NJBIZ

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