Celebration Held for DF/BWCC, Milford Partnership
Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center (DF/BWCC) is extending high-quality cancer care to communities southwest of Boston as a Nov. 12 celebration marked the collaboration of DF/BWCC and Milford Regional Medical Center in a new facility scheduled to open in late 2007. Construction has already begun for the two-story, 54,000-square-foot building that will offer exam rooms, chemotherapy infusion, radiation therapy and diagnostic imaging.
“Today is a defining moment in the evolution of Milford Regional as we add this critical cancer treatment facility to our long-range plan for a full-service, community-based, regional health care system,” said Francis Saba, president and CEO of Milford Regional Healthcare System.
Doctors, patients, administrators and policy makers gathered for the celebration, including state Sen. Richard Moore, chair of the committee on health care financing, who praised the planned cancer center for its role in preventing and treating a disease that touches nearly everyone.
DF/BWCC will bring closer-to-home care to patients who live in this region 35 miles southwest of Boston. Two oncologists currently practicing at Milford Regional, Mona Kaddis, MD, and Michael Constantine, MD, will become Dana-Farber physicians, and a third will be hired. In the new facility, Dana-Farber will oversee medical oncology, Brigham and Women’s will offer radiation oncology, and Milford will provide diagnostic imaging such as CT, PET-CT, MRI, and X-ray, as well as laboratory testing. The comprehensive program will also offer patients additional support and education and access to certain DF/BWCC clinical trials.
Milford is the second “satellite” DF/BWCC facility for adult clinical care. In the program at Faulkner Hospital, patients are seen in four disease centers—breast, lung, and gastrointestinal cancer and general oncology—with BW/F oncologists joining DFCI staff. The clinic has grown rapidly, with nearly 800 patients transferring their care to the Faulkner unit, and more than 2,000 patient visits since it opened in June.
“Together with Dana-Farber, Milford Hospital and our community partners, we are making our world-class cancer care available to more patients and their families,” BWH President Gary Gottlieb, MD, MBA, said.
“There is a sense of excitement among leaders at Brigham and Women’s and Dana-Farber,” said Edward J. Benz Jr., MD, Dana-Farber’s president and CEO. “In Milford, we have found a wonderful partnership of community and academic medicine, which will hopefully become a prototype for the future.”