Queen's Cancer Center

HONOLULU – The Queen’s Medical Center’s Cancer Center is among 14 new sites chosen by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to join a national network of community cancer centers offering expanded research opportunities and state-of-the-art cancer care at community hospitals.

The NCI Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP) is using $40 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand its number of community hospital-based sites from 16 to 30.

“NCI’s mission is to reduce the burden of cancer for all,” said Art Ushijima, President of The Queen’s Medical Center. “The NCI estimates that 85 percent of cancer patients are diagnosed and treated within community hospitals, close to a patient’s home. We are indeed quite proud that the NCI has selected Queen’s to participate in the NCCCP, which
extends the NCI cancer program into local communities, like ours, giving patients easier access to the state-of-the-art cancer care and clinical trial opportunities.”

“With this designation, NCI has recognized The Queen’s Medical Center for its outstanding cancer care. We now have the potential to play a significant leadership role in defining quality cancer care for the future,” said Darlena Chadwick, RN, Vice President for Patient Care. “We are honored to be one of 14 selected new sites from 6,000 eligible community hospitals in the United States. We are also proud to partner with Imi Hale and the Native Hawaiian Cancer Network to better serve the native Hawaiian community and all of the people of Hawaii, which has been and continues to be the vision of our founders, Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV.”

NCCCP is designed to create new research opportunities across the cancer continuum from screening and treatment to follow-up care, with an emphasis on minority and underserved populations. Expanding the NCCCP network will provide access to more patients in community cancer centers to support these research efforts.

In addition, the program is studying ways for patients to have access to the latest, evidence-based care close to where they live. For a variety of reasons, many cancer patients cannot commute to major academic medical centers for treatment.

“Our recent selection as an NCCCP site reflects the excellence in cancer treatment at the Queen’s Cancer Center,” said Debbie Ishihara-Wong, Director of Oncology Services and Administrative Lead. “The NCCCP was founded on the principle that patients should not have to travel far for state-of-the-art cancer care.”

“The NCCCP began in 2007 as a three-year pilot network of 16 community cancer centers in 14 states across the nation,” said Paul Morris, M.D., F.A.C.S., Chair of the Cancer Committee at The Queen’s Medical Center and Principal Investigator. “The NCI is exploring how to most effectively expand cancer research and deliver the latest, most advanced cancer care to more patients in the communities where they live. The end result of the truly multidisciplinary cancer care continues to rank The Queen’s Medical Center above national benchmarks for quality and survival, according to the National Cancer Database, which tracks cancer care data for the American College of Surgeon’s Commission on Cancer.”

The Queen’s Cancer Center is Hawaii’s most comprehensive, up-to-date cancer facility, offering patients the only Tomotherapy device (one of just 160 in operation), two robotic surgery systems (da Vinci Surgical System), in-house molecular diagnostics lab, Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT), 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and two 64-slice CTs.

The Queen’s Cancer Center services include the largest and most comprehensive survivorship and navigation program, helping patients through diagnosis, treatment and long-term follow-up. Other services available at the Queen’s Cancer Center include complementary and integrated medicine (e.g., acupuncture and massage therapy), nutritional counseling, genetic counseling and testing, support groups, social work, pain and palliative care, physician therapy, psychiatry, and spiritual counseling.

“The NCI has looked favorably upon The Queen’s Medical Center’s outpatient cancer center, oncology navigation program, state-of-the-art survivorship program, and our plans to develop a biospecimen tissue bank repository for the advancement of cancer research,” said Morris. “The Queen’s oncology research department leads the state and has surpassed many mainland cancer centers in clinical trials accruals. Our plans to interface existing electronic medical records with multiple information technology databases will allow Queen’s to share data with the NCI and other NCCCP sites, for the betterment of Queen’s patients and cancer patients across the nation. The competition for this prestigious selection was fierce, and all of the Queen’s cancer providers are honored to have been a part of this journey.”

The complete list of new sites:

• Northside Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia (Northside Hospital Cancer Care Program)
• The Queen’s Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii (The Queen’s Cancer Center)
• St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center, Boise, Idaho (Mountain State Tumor Institute)
• Mercy Medical Center, Des Moines, Iowa (Mercy Cancer Center)
• Norton Suburban Hospital, Louisville, Kentucky (Norton Cancer Institute)
• Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine (Maine Medical Center Cancer Institute)
• St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ann Arbor, Michigan (St. Joseph Mercy Cancer Care Center)
• Saint Mary's Health Care, Grand Rapids, Michigan (The Lacks Cancer Center)
• Providence Portland Medical Center, Portland, Oregon (Providence Cancer Center)
• Lehigh Valley Hospital, Allentown, Pennsylvania (John and Dorothy Morgan Cancer Center)
• Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, Pennsylvania (Geisinger Medical Center Cancer Institute)
• Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Einstein Cancer Center and Einstein Center One)
• Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin (Gundersen Lutheran Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders)
• Waukesha Memorial Hospital, Waukesha, Wisconsin (Waukesha Care Regional Cancer Center)

For a list of all sites in the network, visit ncccp.cancer.gov.