DF/BWCC Celebrates a Decade of Excellence
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a series detailing BWH’s five Centers of Excellence: Cancer, Cardiovascular, Neurosciences, Orthopedics and Arthritis and Women’s Health.
Through a decade of teamwork instead of competition, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have teamed up to become the regional leader in caring for adult cancer patients. The Dane-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center is the clear leader in Eastern Massachusetts with a 16 percent market share and market share leader in 10 of 11 cancer disease centers.
“Together, we truly have a limitless future, defined to some extent by what we’ve accomplished in such a short time,” BWH President Gary Gottlieb, MD, MBA, said during the DF/BWCC 10th anniversary celebration in September.
“Our partnership demonstrates what the power of sharing resources can truly accomplish,” DFCI President and DF/BWCC Director Ed Benz, MD, said.
DF/BWCC Disease Centers |
Breast
Cutaneous
Endocrine
Gastrointestinal
Genitourinary
Gynecologic
Head and Neck
Hematologic Oncology
Hematology
Neuro-Oncology
Sarcoma
Thoracic
|
DF/BWCC is devoted to helping people fight cancer by offering the most advanced treatment with the compassion and care that makes all the difference. This integration of one of the world’s leading cancer institutes with one of the world’s leading hospitals has created one center and one clinical team with a unique combination of resources to fight and defeat cancer.
Driven by the center’s goal of being the world’s leader in the delivery of cancer care, the DF/BWCC is setting the standard in innovation and delivering cutting-edge, personalized care as the leading cancer resource in New England. The cancer center’s hub in the Longwood Medical Area will get a new look as the 13-story Yawkey Center for Cancer Care, a new, state-of-the-art building for patient care and clinical research, is slated to open in 2011 at the corner of Brookline Avenue and Jimmy Fund Way. Bridges at the third floor will connect the center with the Smith Research building, BWH and Children’s Hospital Boston. An underground passage will link it to the Dana and Mayer buildings.
In addition, the DF/BWCC at Faulkner Hospital is off to a robust start with community-based care offered in Jamaica Plain after opening more than one year ago. The 13,000 square-foot facility unites Faulkner’s medical oncology and hematology services with those of the DF/BWCC in an expanded, collaborative outpatient service. It’s twice the size of Faulkner’s previous oncology unit, and offers expanded space for infusion, exams and reception and support services. The Mohs Surgery Center in June moved from DFCI to Faulkner Hospital, adding highly-specialized outpatient treatment for skin cancers to patients in its new suite on the fourth floor at Faulkner with three times as much space.
DF/BWCC is partnering with Milford Regional Hospital on a new $25 million, 54,000-square-foot cancer center slated to open in January 2008, and with South Shore Hospital in building a cancer center facility in Weymouth.
The DF/BWCC provides care to adult patients in 12 specialized centers, each devoted to clinical care, education and research for a different type of cancer. The full spectrum of clinical care from prevention and screening, diagnosis and treatment and survivorship is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team, which includes specialists within medical oncology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology and Nursing.
Zinner said the multidisciplinary care teams have come together “incredibly well” during the last few years, adding that DF/BW’s cancer care is entering the personalized medicine era. The cancer center is leading the way in catering an individual’s care to his or her own special cancer by analyzing tissue samples for molecular biomarkers.
In addition, DF/BWCC’s clinical teams can modify and redirect care based on the pathology of tumor samples analyzed following surgery or chemotherapy or both. “We are designing out new facilities with the opportunity to acquire that tissue, test for biomarkers and changes, and redirect and change our care based on the individual cancer,” he said.
The DF/BWCC will broaden the scope of care and collaborate with other non-oncology specialists to care for complications that survivors might suffer as a result of cancer treatment.
DF/BWCC Executive Leadership Team
Ed Benz, MD, Chair
Michael Zinner, MD, Clinical Director
Janet Porter, PhD, Deputy Director
Dianne Cerce, Executive Administrator
Members:
Gary Gottlieb, MD, MBA
Dorothy Puhy
Roger Deshaies
Jay Harris, MD
Jim Griffin, MD
Pat Reid Ponte, DNSc, RN
Lawrence Shulman, MD
Kate Walsh, BWH COO