Mary Bird Perkins and Woman’s Hospital Uniting to Provide Care for Cancer Patients

Mary Bird Perkins – Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center and Woman’s Hospital uniting to deliver a new system of care through affiliation.    (Baton Rouge, La.) Mary Bird Perkins – Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center (MBP-OLOL Cancer Center) and Woman’s Hospital (Woman’s) are teaming up to establish a new system of care that will promote a higher degree of physician collaboration, coordination and disease management for patients with breast and gynecologic (GYN) cancers. With this new approach, women in the Gulf South will soon have a powerful new ally at their side throughout their cancer journey. While MBP – OLOL Cancer Center and Woman’s have partnered for many years, this new collaborative effort will define a more comprehensive level of care for women. As part of this affiliation, plans for a new facility, the Center for Breast & GYN Cancer, are underway. The proposed free-standing facility is scheduled to be completed by late 2016 and located on the Woman’s campus. Potential comprehensive services for the Center for Breast & GYN Cancer include physician offices, diagnostics, outpatient surgery, infusion (chemotherapy) and radiation therapy. Breast and GYN cancer patients will also have the choice to access any of these services at MBP-OLOL Cancer Center’s main campus on Essen Lane. Through this new affiliation, many other physician specialties and support and early detection services will be available to women. “This will be a union of our technology, individual clinical expertise and specialized cancer resources to uniquely deliver the most advanced, personalized cancer care for women in the Gulf South,” said Teri Fontenot, president and chief executive officer, Woman’s Hospital. “Partnering with Mary Bird Perkins – Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center is a natural progression, allowing us to unite our collective resources into a system of total care so women with breast and gynecological cancers will receive the highest level of expert care in the location most convenient for them.” “As community healthcare organizations, we believe this system of care concept will be the most effective and efficient way to deliver the highest quality cancer care to women in the region,” said Todd Stevens, president and CEO, Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. “Partnerships are an emerging trend in cancer care partly because of the complexity of the disease and the immense resources required for expert care. Together, we can attack breast and gynecological cancers from every angle, providing women with more choices and the best patient experience available.” The next milestone will be to establish an affiliation agreement that will outline the relationship between the organizations. The overall governance structure will be provided by a team, consisting of Mary Bird Perkins, Our Lady of the Lake and Woman’s Hospital executives and medical staff leaders who will oversee its strategic direction. “Our affiliation with Mary Bird Perkins has been extremely successful, allowing us, together, to provide an unprecedented level of cancer services to Gulf South communities,” said K. Scott Wester, president and CEO, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center. “Now, in joining with Woman’s Hospital, we will define a new level of care for breast and gynecological cancers. Physician insights have been invaluable even at this early stage and will help shape our design and delivery of care that we expect to be nationally recognized for clinical excellence and innovation.”   As the regional destination for cancer care, Mary Bird Perkins – Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center offers advanced technology and services provided by nationally-recognized doctors and other oncology health professionals who have dedicated their lives to fighting the disease. The Cancer Center is consistently recognized for its dedication to offering best-practice, 
comprehensive care at every stage of the cancer journey. Woman’s Hospital is the 17th largest women’s specialty hospital in the United States, performing more than 8,500 deliveries, 44,000 mammograms and 54,000 Pap screens annually. A private, nonprofit organization, Woman’s is consistently recognized for its innovative programs that fulfill its mission to improve the health of women and infants.