Cape Girardeau cancer center a week away from opening

For all the time, effort and resources that went into designing the Southeast Cancer Center, just as much was spent designing the experience patients will have when receiving treatments there, the center's executive director said.

Southeast's patient experience team, made up of about 50 physicians, therapy staff, social workers and hospital board members, spent two years researching what makes patients' trips for treatment better, Judy Aslin said.

Work on the new $33 million facility on Mount Auburn Road is nearly complete, with tasks such as unpacking equipment and arranging furniture remaining. The center will open to patients Feb. 7, and an open house is planned for 1 to 4 p.m. Feb. 27.

Part of the experience for patients will be viewing 90 pieces of artwork, many by local artists, on the walls. An art consultant from Virginia helped the patient experience team choose the artwork, Aslin said.

"We wanted art to be a distraction," she said. "Not to feel like a clinical place. A place where you could receive expert care, but you don't feel so institutional. A place where you feel welcome."

Another effort to avoid an institutional feel is the lack of numbered rooms. Instead, rooms bear names such as "Anticipation," "Embark," "Discovery," "Meadow," "Hope" and "Breeze."

The Journey Gallery will show pictures of center patients taken by local photographers, Aslin said.

"Although people have cancer, they still have a life beyond cancer. We want to showcase that," she said.

About 80 employees will staff the center. Patients will receive radiation therapy and outpatient chemotherapy and other infusion treatments, and the center will house physician offices, a laboratory, radiology and infusion pharmacy services. A restaurant called Jasmine's and a retail pharmacy will be on the first floor. A walkway connects the cancer center to the medical office building next to it.

Chief among the new equipment at the center are twin linear accelerators, a $5.8 million investment in radiation therapy technology. The machines took eight weeks to install, and most of their 10,000-pound bulk is hidden from patients behind a wall.

"It's less intimidating when you don't see all the stuff it takes to make a linear accelerator work," said Nicholas Schupp, director of radiation therapy at the center. With two identical machines, people won't have to miss their treatment if one machine is down, he added. One is named "Believe," the other named "Conquer," and a third bay is available for another machine in the future.

Each of the center's 33 semiprivate infusion treatment rooms has a floor-to-ceiling window, television and sliding door. Medical equipment that typically hangs on the wall elsewhere is hidden in cabinets and nurses will bring supplies into the rooms on wheeled carts, Aslin said. The nurses' station in that area is named "Heart and Spirit."

Through a partnership with the American Cancer Society, volunteers will help patients suffering from hair loss as a side effect of their cancer treatment select free wigs and turbans in a special room at the Cancer Center. Last year, the local American Cancer Society served 67 Southeast patients through the program, said Sheri House, community manager of health initiatives for the American Cancer Society in Cape Girardeau.

SoutheastHEALTH recently started a "Give Us 5 Minutes and We'll Donate $5" program for people who visit the new center's website: SoutheastCancerCenter.org and answer five questions about cancer. SoutheastHEALTH will donate $5 to Relay for Life for every person who completes the short quiz. This special project between SoutheastHEALTH and the American Cancer Society continues through April 2011. More than 500 people have already participated.

The cancer center, the largest project in SoutheastHEALTH's history, has been under construction since January 2009.

mmiller@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

789 S. Mount Auburn Road, Cape Girardeau, MO