St. Joseph Hospital-Orange was thinking local when it designed its newly operational $68 million Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment, which brings every aspect of cancer medicine into one location.
But its impact could be national.
The National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute has tapped the
center as a pilot site for its Community Cancer Centers program, which is creating a network of community cancer centers to potentially expand research and care.
St. Joseph,one of three local hospitals owned by Orange-based St. Joseph Health System,is the only California hospital selected for the program.
St. Joseph opened the center five months ago, bringing together doctors and equipment that could diagnose, treat and study cancer in one campus.
Having consolidated services “absolutely helps,” when it comes to the business end of treating cancer, said Nancy Harris, who administers the hospital’s cancer services.
Cancer patients spend a great deal of time under treatment.
In the first year after diagnosis, Harris said that patients generally visit their treatment center 50 to 150 times.
The hospital expects to see 1,500 to 1,600 newly diagnosed cancer patients a year, she said.
The hospital operator is hoping the center and extended campus will make the process a little easier for patients and doctors.
St. Joseph’s Growth
St. Joseph’s cancer complex cost $126 million. Besides the 87,000-square-foot Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment, there’s also a 131,000-square-foot medical office tower and a parking structure with room for more than 1,000 cars.
Some $22 million of the project’s costs came from individual, corporate and foundation donations.
The Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment is the second sizable project that St. Joseph has opened on or near its Orange campus during the past two years.
It also opened a $203 million patient care center to meet California’s hospital earthquake safety law and the needs of its patients.
The cancer center is on La Veta Avenue, which crosses the hospital’s campus near the Garden Grove (22) Freeway.
The center’s designed, like many healthcare facilities today, for outpatient use. Some 90% of the center’s services, including initial surgeries, don’t require inpatient stays, Harris said.
For the day-to-day operations, St. Joseph-Orange uses what are called “nurse navigators:” registered nurses who work with patients and their families to coordinate and manage the entire treatments. Nurse navigators usually have experience with various types of treatments such as surgery, radiation, bone marrow transplants or infusion therapy, Harris said.
Other support services include dietary assistance, social work, language interpretation, financial counseling and insurance counseling.
The center has about 100 workers, not including the medical office building’s doctors and medical staff. Harris said that number would increase slightly as the center adds more services.
St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Cos.’ Newport Beach office, a fixture in Orange County medical construction, built the cancer treatment center. Pacific Medical Buildings of San Diego owns and operates the medical office building and parking structure.
Taylor, a Newport Beach firm, was the executive architect.
Center’s Design
As for the center’s design, patient input was heavily considered.
St. Joseph had the center’s designers sit down with cancer patients who provided enough suggestions and input to create a 40-page flip chart, Harris said.
Some of those ideas include pictures on the ceilings of the center’s radiation rooms and reclining home-theater-style chairs in the 55 private areas where patients receive chemotherapy drugs via infusion.
St. Joseph also conducted research on other cancer centers as part of its design and development, including Stanford Cancer Center in Palo Alto and Sutter Cancer Center in Sacramento, where Harris previously worked.
