(New Haven, Torrington, CT) Charlotte Hungerford Hospital (CHH), Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), and Yale Cancer Center (YCC), have announced the approval of a Letter of Intent by all three organizations to explore enhancing outpatient cancer services in Litchfield County, Connecticut. The LOI defines an approach that would help increase access to care and ensure the efficient, effective and high-quality delivery of a wide-variety of cancer services in a single facility.
“Ensuring and providing that cancer patients in our community receive the very best care by expert physicians and staff and the most advanced technology continues to be our top priority,” said Dan McIntyre, President and Executive Director at CHH.
Under the language of the LOI, Yale-New Haven and Charlotte Hungerford will look to enhance Charlotte Hungerford Hospital’s Center for Cancer Care through programmatic and infrastructure enhancements. Included in the jointly-developed outpatient facility will be medical oncology services, including infusion; radiation oncology and support services; laboratory medicine services; and, diagnostic imaging services, including PET/CT.
“We are delighted to jointly enhance and build upon outpatient cancer services in Litchfield County with Charlotte Hungerford Hospital,” said Richard D’Aquila, president and COO, YNHH. “We are making tremendous strides in cancer treatment, and this project will allow us to bring novel medicines and therapies closer to patients who live and work in northwest Connecticut.”
The involved parties anticipate this new collaboration will enhance the existing comprehensive services patients have come to expect in the local delivery of cancer care, and are working to integrate and streamline the center’s services and procedures, a process that is anticipated to evolve over the next few months and years.
Shared goals for the new partnership to enhance patient care include building upon and strengthening the center’s resources and services including utilizing current physicians and staff, enhancing complementary cancer therapies and patient support and supporting the expansion of the early detection and breast navigation services, and benefitting local patients by offering greater access to cutting edge treatment options, technology and drug therapies.
The new collaboration will also offer access to a network of nationally known cancer experts and expanded expertise to treat rare and specialized cancer cases; offer patients cutting edge treatment options through clinical trials; expand counseling and testing for those at risk for hereditary cancer; and create convenient access to a special boutique designed to help patients feel better despite their illness.
“All of us at Yale Cancer Center are pleased to be part of this critical project,” said Thomas Lynch, Jr., MD, director, Yale Cancer Center, and physician-in-chief, Smilow Cancer Hospital. “As the outstanding physicians of COH integrate into Smilow and Yale, providing them a modern facility that houses multiple modalities of care is critical as we work at providing our patients with the latest and most personalized care in their local communities.”
Over the coming months, members of the hospital administrations and their planning teams will be evaluating and exploring the overall logistics and shared considerations of our future collaboration. This includes examining the need and feasibility of locally expanding and relocating services to improve patient care and expand access to Cancer services in northwest Connecticut. In addition, the continuous utilization of our current Kennedy Drive campus will enable us to provide health services CHH has long planned to expand and provides us with exciting reuse opportunities for the communities we serve.
This past June, Connecticut Oncology and Hematology (COH), a medical oncology physician practice based in Litchfield County, integrated into Yale-New Haven’s Smilow Cancer Hospital. The five physicians of COH have been appointed to the Yale Cancer Center medical oncology faculty and will continue to be members of the Charlotte Hungerford medical staff.
“Our physician practice has always been committed to bringing the most innovative and state of the art cancer treatment to our patients in an environment that fosters a very personal dimension to all aspects of their care,” said Jedd Levine, MD, Smilow Cancer Hospital Care Center, Torrington. “We are confident that our new relationship with Smilow and Yale Cancer Center will serve to enhance this commitment and create an enduring legacy of cancer care excellence for the people of Northwest Connecticut.”
Yale-New Haven Hospital is a nationally recognized, 1,541-bed, not-for-profit hospital serving as the primary teaching hospital for the Yale School of Medicine. Yale-New Haven was founded as the fourth voluntary hospital in the U.S. in 1826 and today, the two in-patient campus hospital complex includes Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital, Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital and Smilow Cancer Hospital.
The Charlotte Hungerford Hospital is a 109 bed, general acute care hospital located in Torrington, Connecticut, that serves as a regional health care resource for 100,000 residents of Litchfield County and Northwest Connecticut. CHH offers personalized attention from an expert team of caregivers and physicians that utilize advanced technology and clinical partnerships in a convenient, safe and comfortable patient environment. One-Thousand Caregivers, One Job, Your Health. Visit www.charlottehungertford.org for information.
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CONTACT: Brian Mattiello (CHH) - 860-485-4542
Rob Hutchison (YNHH) – 203-688-2488