Raleigh Community Hospital has begun construction on a new $7.2 million outpatient cancer center designed to expand the hospital's services and reputation in the Wake County area.
The community hospital, which Duke University Health Systems acquired in 1998, also plans to introduce a $2.13 million Fixed Diagnostic Cardiac Catheterization Lab later this month. Both projects, which include substantial renovation of space RCH already owns, are part of a strategic plan officials formulated two years ago to augment revenue and create a market niche for the hospital.
"This is really the first phase of our focus on distinct specialty programs," said Carla Hollis, vice president for marketing and development at RCH.
Officials at RCH hope this expansion will increase patient volume directly by doubling the hospital's capacity for cancer patients and indirectly by raising the hospital's profile.
The new facilities will allow the 186-bed hospital to be more competitive with the other two community hospitals in Wake County. RCH is smaller than both hospitals and fills a smaller percentage of its inpatient beds.
RCH's expanded cancer center will challenge Rex Hospital, part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Health System, which also has a cancer center. The FDCCL may draw some patients from Wake Med, which specializes in cardiac care.
"We expect to be a competitive center but we believe that the citizens of Wake County deserve a choice," Hollis said. "As part of a number six-ranked health system, we believe we have something different to offer."
When the cancer center opens in spring 2004, it will include the latest radiation technology, allowing more specific and potent doses of radiation to be administered than is possible with the hospital's current facilities. It will also enable RCH to do simulation--which is essentially the tumor mapping process required to design a course of treatment--on site.
Currently, RCH loses some potential patients because they must go to Duke University Hospital or other Raleigh-area hospitals for this initial process.
"The reality of Raleigh is that patients don't like to go outside of Raleigh for treatment," Director of Oncology Services Todd Sigmon said, explaining that many cancer patients are elderly and enfeebled. "To many people, the trip to Durham might as well be to the other side of the universe."
Duke physicians who also work at DUH and teach in the medical school will continue to staff the expanded center at RCH. Although the new cancer center will only administer established treatments, patients will still have the option to participate in clinical trials at DUH. The cancer center will also include additional space for cancer-specific nutrition, education and counseling services.
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