The Cancer Institute at St. Joseph Medical Center – The Only Maryland Hospital Chosen by NCI to Participate in Multi-Million Dollar Pilot Program to Bring NCI Cancer Care to Community Hospitals
The Cancer Institute at St. Joseph Medical Center is proud to announce that it will participate in a three-year pilot program to extend the reach of National Cancer Institute (NCI) research and state-of-the-art treatment into community hospitals across the country. St. Joseph Medical Center is the only Maryland hospital to be chosen for this pilot program, known as the NCI Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP).
This unprecedented pilot program will bring many more Americans into a system of the highest quality cancer care, increasing participation in life-saving clinical trials, and taking a step toward reducing cancer health care disparities across the nation caused by patients’ inability to access a major cancer centers.
Evidence from a wide range of studies suggests that cancer patients treated in major cancer centers with access to clinical research may live longer with a greater chance of cancer cure. In addition, research confirms that equal treatment at the same stage of the disease yields equal outcomes across all populations. Therefore, expanding access to optimal cancer care to underserved and underrepresented populations is expected to dramatically reduce cancer mortality in the United States.
Five of the hospitals in the program belong to Catholic Health Initiatives, the parent organization for St. Joseph Medical Center and also a major sponsor of the pilot. The other CHI hospitals included in the program are: Penrose-St. Francis Health Service in Colorado, and St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital and St. Francis Medical Center in Nebraska.
NCI will provide $15 million over the length of the project, which is expected to begin in July 2007. Of these funds, the three CHI cancer programs will receive $1.5 million, which will be matched by $1.5 million at the CHI-national level and another $1.5 million, collectively, on the local hospitals’ levels, for a total of $4.5 million.
Dr. Mark Krasna, medical director of The Cancer Institute at St. Joseph Medical Center, is the lead investigator for CHI’s cancer programs’ participation. “This pilot program will expand clinical trial availability and increase cancer survival for segments of our society who do not presently have access to this type of care,” he says.
The NCI estimates that approximately 85 percent of cancer patients in the U.S. are diagnosed at hospitals in or near the communities in which they live. Only about 15 percent are diagnosed at NCI-designated Cancer Centers. The pilot project will extend the high level of care now available at these top-flight research centers into local communities, providing patients with far easier access to clinical research and the best care in the world.
This means that collaboration between community and national cancer centers will help save lives by providing advanced care and significantly increase the number of cancer patients who can take part in clinical trials.
