Ochsner Medical Center-Baton Rouge announced today it is expanding its cancer care offerings in the local market with the creation of a new $12.8 million dedicated cancer care space that will be located in the Physicians Plaza II building at the hospital’s O’Neal Lane campus.
The Ochsner Baton Rouge Cancer Center will offer a hematology/oncology outpatient clinic with both chemotherapy infusion and radiation oncology services on one floor in the same building. That’s important because it will make treatment more accessible and convenient for patients, according to Dr. Burke “Jay” Brooks, chairman of Ochsner’s Baton Rouge hematology/oncology department.
“All of radiation therapy in Baton Rouge is on the western side of the city,” Brooks says. “This location is about 10 miles from Baton Rouge General and Our Lady of the Lake so patients don’t have to drive across town, and that is a huge advantage because radiation is given daily.”
The location also is convenient because a lot of chemotherapy and radiation is given at the same time, he says.
The new facility will be located in a space that is underutilized on the first floor of the physicians plaza building. The hospital currently offers chemotherapy at the O’Neal Lane facility, but the expansion will enable it to increase the number of infusion chairs from five to 15. The addition of radiation services at the site is new.
Though the market for cancer care providers is crowded, with OLOL’s Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center and BRG’s Pennington Cancer Center, Ochsner officials say demand for services is expected to increase dramatically in the near future. An aging population and a growing number of cancer survivors, whose chances of relapsing are higher than average, are among the reasons for the projected need.
Ochsner officials say though their facilities in Baton Rouge are primarily located around the outskirts of the metro area, as opposed to being centrally located in the city’s nascent health district, they are poised to take advantage of growth that is expected to come to the health district.
“When you have health districts, do all people need to come to one location or can you spread it out so people can come to lots of locations?” Brooks says. “We think there are plenty of advantages to spreading it around.”
Ochsner-Baton Rouge continues to expand its footprint in the Capital Region. In 2015, it added the Iberville Medical Complex. Ochsner Health Center-Zachary is scheduled to open late this summer.
—Stephanie Riegel
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