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Courtesy / Central Maine Healthcare
A rendering of the 50,000-square-foot cancer center planned by Central Maine Healthcare at its Lewiston campus.
Central Maine Healthcare plans to break ground on a 50,000-square-foot cancer care center in Lewiston by fall, with the center opening before 2022, officials told residents of the Lewiston-Auburn area Wednesday night.
The Lewiston-based health care system, which has started the certificate of need process for the center, held a public forum on its plans that drew more than 100 to the Gendron Franco Center in Lewiston.
The cancer center will be built next to the Main Street entrance of the CMMC campus, and is expected to cost $35 million. System officials said the center has become a necessity since oncology services are now scattered around the hospital's large urban campus and in aging buildings that don't support technology upgrades.
"When you put yourself in the place of people with cancer, put yourself in their shoes, it's a daunting task" to navigate the campus cancer care units, Jeff Brickman, CEO of Central Maine Healthcare, said. He and others walked the path that cancer patients would have to recently, and they covered roughly three football fields, he said.
Brickman said the center not only means that cancer patients won't have to navigate the health care system's Lewiston campus to get all their care, but also patients in the region won't have to travel as far for their cancer care. It's expected to largely cater to the hospital's current patients in the Lewiston-Auburn region, as well as from its hospitals in Bridgton and Rumford.
The new center is also expected to attract additional health care professionals to the system, Brickman said.
Androscoggin County has one of the highest rates of cancer in the state, which has among the highest cancer rates in the country. While the region is a "hot spot for oncology," the health care system hasn't had the facilities to keep care local, he said. "We need to be relevant," Brickman said.
The center, with the working name of Central Maine Cancer Center, will put the health care system's radiation oncology, medical oncology and surgical oncology departments all under one roof, as well as other specialties, including therapy, diagnostics and nurse navigators.
Also speaking at the forum were oncology physicians, who said equipment upgrades require new buildings, and that the area's cancer patients suffer from efficient location of their care.
The radiation oncology uses machines that take up a lot of room and have to be upgraded, said Courtney Jensen, a radiation oncologist. The machines are bigger than the space, some of it built more than 100 years ago, can accommodate.
"Putting these new machines in old buildings is not possible," Jensen said. "And in the end, it doesn't solve the bigger problem, which is the location." Patients who are sick, and often elderly, have to walk distances around the campus that "are long for most of us, and daunting for them."
Lisa Rutsein, a surgical oncologist, said that the distance patients have to travel for care often determines how their cancer will be treated. She said it also has a big effect on their time, and mental and emotional well-being.
She gave an example of a patient driving an hour, or three hours, in the snow to get treatment, only to find out they'll have to do the same drive to talk to other specialists or for other purposes. The new center will be the difference "of driving once through the snow, instead of three times, spending $20 on gas rather than $60," she said. "One trip, not three."
According to CMH, there are 42,825 patient visits each year to CMMC’s breast center, infusion clinic, radiation oncology department and oncology clinic. Having industry-standard full-service oncology services at CMMC — allowing patients to receive care without having to travel to other care providers — could save the community $993,000 annually in travel costs and prevent patients from having to drive more than 35,000 hours each year, hospital officials said in November when the cancer center was announced.
The developer of the project is Bateman Partners LLC, who also built the center's Topsham Care Center and is building its Lewiston urgent care center. The architect is MBH Architects, which has offices in New York and San Francisco.
The state Department of Health and Human Services certificate of need process, which determines if a hospital or health care system's investment in a new facility meets the need for it, takes 90 days. Officials Tuesday said the project can get underway once that approval is made.
Larry Carbonneau, program manager for health care oversight at DHHS, said it's about more than just a building. "It's easy to build buildings, but it's how they get used that's important."
System officials said they hope to have it up and running before 2022.
In answer to audience questions, Brickman said the millions invested in the center will have a ripple effect throughout the community, creating jobs and having a positive impact on businesses as it draws new patients, as well as brings new medical talent to the region.
He said the fact it's consolidating services and making them more efficient and less costly for patients as well as the health care system means it will be flexible if there are changes to the national health care structure. One goal of the center is to diagnose and care for cancer before patients have to be admitted to the hospital.
"Reform will reward that strategy," Brickman said. "We'll take it on."
Brickman opened by acknowledging the health care system's financial and other issues over the past few years, but he said things have turned around. Health care in Maine, he said in his opening remarks "is a full-contact sport and not for the faint of heart."
As he closed at the end of the 90-minute event, he said said the new center will continue to build on the strong foundation of quality care the system now has, and said it's because of the community that it's happening.
"It's important to keep finding ways to bring care," he told those at the forum. "You guys have been loyal, you've been resilient."
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