A $62.4 million “house of hope” for cancer patients opened in north Everett in June, though it’s officially known as the Providence Regional Cancer Partnership headquarters facility.
But for people suffering from the scourge of cancer, and enduring the emotional and physical stress of healing treatments, the new center is without doubt a fortress of hope in their war against this disease.
Four leading, and usually competing, nonprofit and for-profit health-care providers in Snohomish County joined forces for the first time in a venture that leverages their individual skills and resources. The partnership makes their individual efforts not only more effective but also more helpful to patients and their families.
Credit for the 100,000-square-foot, world-class cancer center goes not only to Providence Everett Medical Center, The Everett Clinic, Western Washington Medical Group and Northwest Washington Radiation Oncology Associates but also to hundreds of people in the community who contributed nearly $5 million to the Providence General Foundation to support construction of the new building.
While each of the partners has been involved with cancer treatment for years, particularly Providence Everett Medical Center’s Flynn Cancer Center, a new facility for applying newer technology and improved processes for handling patients’ records and treatment needs has long been needed.
Health-care evolution for the county
“This opening marks a great day in the evolution of health care in Snohomish County,” said Dr. Elie Saikaly, medical director of the Providence Regional Cancer Partnership. “There has been a determined focus on recruiting the top cancer-care experts to this region — oncologists, surgeons and other health-care experts — to pool their expertise and experience for a new level of multi-disciplinary medicine. Add in world-class technology and all the patient-centered amenities this cancer partnership offers, and patients will get the most advanced care available, right here in Everett.”
Considering medical studies have found that two of every three men and one of every three women develop cancer in their lifetimes, the new center is decidedly a community asset that will provide increasing benefits for residents of Snohomish County and surrounding communities for decades to come.
“The whole facility is designed with the patient in mind,” said the center’s executive director, Jean McMahon, during a news media tour of the five-floor building. “Our main lobby and waiting rooms have been decorated with appropriate artwork — nothing with abstract work, which often has a negative effect on cancer patients — and we use wood and color furnishings that reflect a homelike setting.”
The first floor provides a centralized patient registration area, a small bistro serving deli foods for visitors and a cancer resource center near an office staffed by the American Cancer Society. On the second level are radiation therapy services and a rooftop garden, while level three provides chemotherapy infusion services with views of the Cascades, an important setting for patients who spend hours in treatment.
Physicians and a staff of 80 have offices and workplaces throughout the first three floors and share a high-tech conference room on the third floor for medical teams reviewing and planning patients’ treatment programs. The two top floors provide 38,000 square feet of space for leased medical and physician offices. An adjacent 489-space parking garage provides access directly to each floor to ease mobility for patients.
Technology, comfort and support
Along with a high-technology radiation approach to cancer treatment, the partnership hosts a robust cancer research program with 15 physician investigators in medical, radiation, surgical and thoracic oncology. More than 20 clinical trials are available, including phase III and IV national trials.
In addition to the latest in technology and research, and 24 chemotherapy stations, the cancer partnership’s program design adds evidence-based complementary therapy integrated with traditional medical treatments. This integrative approach includes acupuncture, hypnosis, touch therapies, massage, Qigong, nutritional counseling, naturopathy and other therapies.
The partnership also offers cancer support services that incorporate distress management tools including patient and family counseling, support groups, chaplaincy, cancer-related psychopharmacology services and behavioral medicine.
One of the most important changes brought about by the new center is being able to provide conferences among the medical team to discuss each person’s cancer situation and treatments, each exchanging information and recommendations from their own experiences and areas of expertise. The team of physicians providing care at the new center has spent years in research and cancer treatment in some of the world’s top-rated education and health-care institutions.
Electronic patient files a major upgrade
Underlying the whole system is an integrated electronic master file network that provides patient records for individual physicians as well as for the medical team during joint meetings. In the past, keeping medical records up to date and always having copies available whenever and wherever they were needed was a major weakness in the cancer treatment system.
Anne Hartline, an employee of Providence Everett Medical Center, well remembers her own bouts with the disease, twice being diagnosed with breast cancer. She has beaten it twice, but she said the process was difficult and confusing when she began her journey in 1997.
“The diagnosis alone created stress, confusion and chaos. It amplified as I was faced with choosing providers and treatment,” she recalled.
She was fortunate, she said, that she knew the local health-care system and had local access to support, information and treatment that were vital to her decisions and needs. She knew it must have been even more difficult for those unfamiliar with the medical system and stressed by their battle with the disease.
Too often, she said, health-care providers didn’t communicate well with each other. Requests for lab results or an X-ray report were meant to be sent to specific doctors, yet when she arrived for appointments the needed information often hadn’t arrived. Sometimes, one doctor didn’t know what procedures or tests had been done by another physician.
“At best, the process was frustrating and stressful. At its worst, it can paralyze and overwhelm people,” Hartline said. “With my second (cancer) journey in 2003, I was far more knowledgeable about resources and options, and I was delighted to find there were treatment advances. When you can follow chemo with a latte and a cookie, you know the anti-nausea drug is working.”
She calls the new cancer center “a coming together of ‘best practices,’ sharing information, true partnering and putting patients first, providing them with the best care possible, seamlessly, in our own community, without making stressful trips to Seattle.”
Companies involved in building the cancer center include the general contractor, Mortenson Construction Co., and the architect, Anshen + Allen, Seattle.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.