St. Luke’s Hospital announces community cancer center in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS – A new Cedar Rapids Community Cancer Center will directly compete with a similar center under construction nearby at Mercy Medical Center.

Ted Townsend, CEO of St. Luke's Hospital, said Wednesday's announcement that St. Luke's and local physicians are opening a new Cedar Rapids Community Cancer Center is really nothing new.

“This is a consolidation of existing services in our community,” he said, adding that a community cancer center has been under discussion for three years.

Townsend said the Community Cancer Center will be patient-centered and led by doctors in a team-oriented approach.

The center will be located in the forthcoming Physicians' Clinic of Iowa Medical Pavilion at Second Avenue and 10

^th

Street SE.

Just blocks away, Mercy has already started construction on the hospital's Hall-Perrine Cancer Center, set to open next spring.

The $24.6 million center will wrap around Mercy's Hall Radiation Center near 10th Street and Fifth Avenue SE.

PCI's $47 million medical mall complex is slated to open early in 2013.

“I think it is a competitor,” Townsend said of the cancer center.

He added, however, that the center's consolidation of services will be more convenient for patients and allow Cedar Rapids to compete with other centers, such as the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center in Iowa City.

Mercy responded to the announcement with a statement saying Mercy will continue to work with PCI physicians and all area healthcare providers to deliver high-quality patient care.

“We support all efforts to improve cancer care in this community,” Dr. Martin Wiesenfeld, oncologist and medical director of Mercy's Hall-Perrine Cancer Center, said in the statement.

Townsend noted that St. Luke's is not on its own in creating the new cancer center.

Nearly 200 local doctors, including independent physicians and those at PCI, are collaborating in the effort, he said.

Most cancer services are provided in doctor offices, Townsend noted, with periodic episodes of surgery or radiation provided in hospitals.

St. Luke's does not have a radiation program, but performs other cancer treatment, such as robotic surgery for prostate cancer.

Both hospitals treat a nearly equal number of cancer patients. In 2009, St. Luke's cared for 905 cancer patients, while Mercy treated 939. Both are accredited by the American College of Surgeons Cancer Programs.

Cedar Rapids has been cited as a national model for high-quality, low-cost medical care and Townsend said that the Community Cancer Center is a continuation of those efforts.

Because offices will be consolidated, such as St. Luke's Cook Cancer Wellness Program, now at a site on First Avenue, Townsend said patients should not see higher costs.

Supporters noted that the center should further reduce patient care costs and capital expenditures as health care providers together plan shared facility and technology investments.

Townsend was disappointed when Mercy announced last year that it would build its own cancer center, after years of discussing forming a community cancer center at a neutral site.

Mercy CEO Tim Charles has said that he sees Mercy's site as the community cancer center, but Townsend disputed that.

“They've never had a monopoly on this,” he said. “Why reward their behavior?”

Dr. Robert Brimmer, a PCI cancer surgeon and founding member of the community cancer center coalition, said PCI doctors will still practice at both hospitals, including Mercy's new cancer center.

Other doctors outside PCI will be allowed to practice in the new Community Cancer Center at PCI, he said.

That includes Dr. Chirantan Ghosh, a Cedar Rapids oncologist who was fired in April from PCI over a difference of opinion.

Many patients of Ghosh said they would go wherever he ends up practicing, even if it's outside Cedar Rapids. His last day is June 30.

Brimmer said Ghosh would be allowed to practice or even lease space in the new Community Cancer Center, if space is available.