Jefferson Regional Medical Center is embarking on an $8 million expansion of its cancer center with the goal of putting everything a cancer patient needs in one place.
Construction on the fully integrated cancer center, which will be located in the Jefferson Professional Center 1 building on the JRMC campus, will be done in two phases. The first will be to expand the medical oncology clinic with an infusion center, which will open in June. The second phase will be the construction of a radiology oncology suite that will be finished toward the end of the year.
"For many decades, cancer care has been an important part of the services we provide to our region, but it has never been more important than it is today," said Brian Thomas, president and CEO of Jefferson Regional. "With this recent investment, all of our cancer care services will now be conveniently located under one roof and designed with one person in mind -- the patient."
The announcement comes at a time when CARTI, a Little Rock-based cancer treatment center with several locations around the state, is establishing itself in Pine Bluff with its own location going up and set to open in January.
Thomas said the decision to upgrade and consolidate JRMC's cancer treatment services has been a goal even before CARTI made the decision to come to Pine Bluff, but the competitive aspects of having another cancer treatment center in town are not lost on the CEO.
"Furthermore, Jefferson Regional's network of specialists are right here in the region, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," Thomas said in a news release. "Competition from Little Rock simply cannot compare because they have to transfer patients out of the region for such specialty care."
In some ways, Jefferson Regional's cancer center effort is nothing new, Thomas said.
"We've been caring for cancer patients for decades," he said. But by putting other medical specialists -- such as general surgeons, gastroenterologists, pathologists, gynecologists and radiologists -- in the same place, and by expanding and upgrading its infusion center, which will be able to treat as many as 27 patients at one time, the hospital is providing one distinct area where patients can come for a variety of cancer-related services.
"Having these necessary services in one place is something we are very excited about and something we think is crucial to the future of cancer care," Thomas said. "We would not be making this type of investment if we thought otherwise.
"Are we happy about having competition from Little Rock? Of course not. But we had already dedicated ourselves to this. And I feel good about it. I feel good about our name and standing in the community and our ability to deliver quality care to our patients. It's just not something that anyone is going to be able to compete with."
Thomas said the cancer center expansion is another example of Jefferson Regional's effort to expand its list of medical offerings in southeast Arkansas.
"Back in 2010, we had 10 specialties and 20 providers," Thomas said. "Today, we have 21 specialties and over 70 providers. To me, that's a huge change in the past decade."
One of those specialists whom JRMC picked up along the way is Dr. Asif Masood, a hematologist and oncologist, who will be a key component in JRMC's new cancer center.
Masood said having so many cancer care-related offerings in one place will be more than just a convenience for many patients in southeast Arkansas; it could be a life-saver.
Masood has been treating cancer patients for 17 years. In the early days of his practice, treatments were rudimentary.
"Compared to today, it was like the stone ages," he said. "Science has evolved so much since then."
Through gene therapy and immunotherapy, specialists can attack a certain type of cancer without doing harm to other areas.
"We have such vast information on most cancers," Masood said. "These treatments are geared to the individual genetic makeup of a tumor, and we are then able to attack individual cells and leave other tissue alone."
The new cancer center will take advantage of such advances, he said, but making a patient's life simpler will also be a significant component.
Cancer care, he said, is complicated and expensive, and by using the "muscle power" of a large medical center like Jefferson Regional, doctors will be able to get care out to many people who have difficulty managing their appointments and transportation to and from those appointments.
"Many patients don't have a lot of social support," he said. "Having the infusion suite and radiology in one location will increase patient compliance and family compliance and overall satisfaction. No treatment is good if a patient is unable to take it. We are now going to make it easier for them."
The result, Masood said, is to have better outcomes with cancer patients in southeast Arkansas. Right now, he said, patient outcomes in this area, when compared with those across the state and country, are "pretty dismal."
The reason for that, he said, is that because of industrial and agricultural practices that are prevalent in the region, "there is a very high incidence of cancer." Some of those cancer patients may be socioeconomically disadvantaged and may not have access to primary care physicians, he said. Consequently, when those patients do present, they may be in an advanced stage of cancer and have a low chance of survival. Having a one-stop cancer center, he said, will make it simpler for all patients to tap into the many cancer-treatment diagnosis and treatment options.
"There is absolutely no question in my mind that this facility will improve the outcomes of patients when it comes to cancer treatment," Masood said.
