St. Joseph’s Health in Syracuse has announced a collaboration with Buffalo’s Roswell Park Cancer Center to create expanded cancer care for central New Yorkers.
This new affiliation, creating a Cancer Care Service Line, will help St. Joe’s patients, who otherwise would have to travel away from the area to get certain services, according to St. Joe’s Vice President Meredith Price.
"20 to 30% of our patients weren't able to be treated within the St. Joseph's network," Price said. "So really ensuring that they're continuing to be serviced by St. Joseph, St. Joseph's health providers and keep that care within our network is extremely important to us."
Oncologist Dr. Haider Khadim has been brought on board to be the medical director of the new service line. He expects the experts at Roswell to be invaluable.
"Roswell Park team is going to be available to us for doing like tumor boards," Khadim said. "If there's not enough treatment available or if I don't know enough about a particular disease, at least I have that particular specialist in Roswell Park who can guide me through the treatment process.”
Khadim emphasizes one of the biggest advantages to this treatment plan is getting patients in as soon as possible for testing so therapies can begin. Currently, the service is available at the hospital's infusion area. A new center will be created at the nearby physician's office building within a year.
