A remarkable expansion of care for cancer patients
Two years after announcing plans for a historic $300 million investment in its Cancer Institute, Allegheny Health Network in 2019 began to deliver on that promise, opening five community cancer centers across western Pennsylvania. Those new centers now provide world-class cancer care to patients in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Erie, and Westmoreland counties.
One more AHN cancer facility is scheduled to open in the first half of 2020 the AHN Cancer Institute Academic Center at Allegheny General Hospital, which will serve as the hub of cancer research and clinical innovation for AHN's cancer program.
As AHN builds new clinical facilities, it also continues to enhance existing ones. In 2019, AHN opened three new state-of-the-art cancer care units at West Penn Hospital. These units are part of an $8 million investment that expands space and provides an enhanced and simplified experience for patients with breast, gynecologic, and hematologic cancers.
But the investment in the Cancer Institute is about far more than bricks and mortar AHN continues to adopt new leading-edge technologies and look for innovative ways to lift the spirits and ease the discomfort of cancer patients and their families throughout their health care journeys.
In 2019, for example, West Penn unveiled its new "Home for Hope," a unique partnership with the local breast cancer advocacy organization Glimmer of Hope, through which breast cancer patients can get complementary therapies such as acupuncture and massage.
AHN also continues to recruit the nation's best and brightest researchers and oncologists, including David Bartlett, MD, an internationally recognized cancer researcher and a pioneer in the use of highly advanced surgical therapies for abdominal cancers. In late 2019, AHN announced that Dr. Bartlett who is also the president of the international Society of Surgical Oncology will join the AHN Cancer Institute as its new chair.
"I have been extremely blessed throughout my career to work alongside so many incredibly dedicated and talented health care professionals, all united by a core mission of providing patients facing the most difficult news of their life with compassion and hope," Dr. Bartlett said.
"That same spirit and commitment to excellence in oncology care is what defines the AHN Cancer Institute and its people."