South County Hospital would become the fourth hospital in Rhode Island approved to offer radiation therapy under a plan recently filed with state health regulators.
The hospital plans to partner with a Florida-based company to build a $4.7 million radiation-therapy center on the hospital’s Wakefield campus. Hospital officials say the facility would provide a service that is badly needed by cancer patients in southern Rhode Island.
“Currently, anyone in South County who needs radiation therapy must travel to Providence or Warwick,” said Ken Kermes, vice president of planning and service development for the 78-bed hospital. “Many of these folks are 60, 70, 80 years old. It’s a very draining experience.”
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The hospital and the for-profit firm, Radiation Therapy Services Inc., filed a “certificate of need” with the state Department of Health on Jan. 10. If approved, organizers expect the facility to open by January 2004.
More than 1,100 people in South County and its surrounding communities were diagnosed with cancer last year, Department of Health statistics indicate. Nearly 60 percent of them will undergo radiation therapy, the hospital’s application says.
Most cancer patients who live in southern Rhode Island now must travel to Providence for treatments – an average of 22 roundtrips, in clusters of five or six treatments a week for several weeks. Because of weakness from the disease and the debilitating effects of the radiation treatments, most patients need a caregiver to drive them.
“The need to travel, itself, is an obstacle to good treatment,” the hospital’s application reads.
Rhode Island Hospital and Roger Williams Medical Center are the only hospitals in the state that provide radiation therapy. There also are two outpatient treatment centers: Radiation Oncology Associates Inc. in Providence and Radiation Oncology Services of Rhode Island in Warwick.
Last fall, Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket received state approval to provide radiation therapy, and it expects to begin treatments later this year in a facility now under construction on its campus. The Landmark project is a joint venture between the hospital and RTS, the same company now partnering with South County Hospital.
The South County proposal describes a market area of roughly 210,000 residents, bounded by Westerly to the south, West Warwick to the north and Jamestown to the east. The new facility would perform an estimated 5,700 radiation treatments in 2004, the application says.
But the plan’s backers first must convince the Department of Health of the need for additional radiation therapy services in the state.
By state law, the Health Services Council, a 19-member board that advises the state health director, reviews certificates of need to determine whether projects are necessary and affordable. Health Director Patricia Nolan has the final say on proposals.
The South County application says there is a “general shortage of capacity to provide radiation therapy services in Rhode Island.” While the state now has nine radiation-therapy machines (spread among the four locations), demand warrants 14 machines, the certificate of need says.
That assessment, however, differs from an analysis prepared last fall by a Department of Health consultant.
In his October report, Warwick consultant Harvey Zimmerman concluded that “there appears to be sufficient capacity available” for radiation therapy in Rhode Island, and that “the need for additional equipment at the state level is questionable.”
Zimmerman’s report was prepared in connection with a proposal filed last summer for a $3 million, outpatient radiation therapy center in Westerly. That application was withdrawn prior to a Health Services Council review.
“There had been questions about how (the Westerly proposal) was going to be organized and who was going to run it,” said John X. Donahue, the state’s chief of health systems development.
Kermes said the fact that the Department of Health already has examined RTS’s track record in connection with the Landmark proposal bodes well for the South County plan. RTS is based in Fort Myers, Fla., and operates about 40 hospital-based and freestanding radiation-therapy centers on the East Coast.
The Landmark arrangement, however, includes a third partner to oversee quality assurance: the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. The South County Hospital proposal does not include a high-profile partner for clinical oversight.
Kermes said that RTS and the hospital are considering an alliance with an institution to provide quality assurance and are “prepared to do that” if health regulators require it. Possibilities include the Lahey Clinic, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Yale-New Haven Medical Center, Kermes said.
He added that the partners have not ruled out a Rhode Island-based teaching hospital.
The South County treatment center would be housed in a 9,100-square-foot building on the hospital campus that until recently served as a day-care center. Renovation costs are estimated at $1.35 million and the equipment, including a linear accelerator, would cost $3 million.
RTS would cover the construction and equipment costs and the hospital would provide the property – similar to the Landmark joint venture. The hospital would take a 35 percent stake in the operation, named South County Radiation Therapy LLC; RTS would own the remaining 65 percent.
The health department is expected to begin a formal review of the application
this month.
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