Highlands, Baxter Regional Ally in $16M Most cancers Middle | Arkansas Enterprise Information

Baxter Regional Medical Middle in Mountain House needed to place all its providers for most cancers sufferers in a single location.

So the 268-bed hospital partnered with the Highlands Oncology Group of Fayetteville to construct a $16 million most cancers therapy heart on the hospital’s campus, mentioned David Fox, Baxter Regional’s chief working officer. The middle shall be on Baxter Regional’s campus, throughout the road from the hospital.

Officers broke floor on the greater than 33,000-SF facility on Aug. 28 with a purpose to start seeing sufferers in October 2022. Baxter and Highlands will personal the middle, and Highlands will function it.

The middle’s providers will embrace medical and surgical oncology, a chemotherapy infusion heart, superior imaging and diagnostic imaging therapy. It should even have a pharmacy and a analysis space, Fox mentioned.

Baxter’s heart is the most recent most cancers therapy facility to be introduced in Arkansas. In September, Genesis Most cancers & Blood Institute of Sizzling Springs opened a clinic in Russellville, the medical group’s tenth location. The group, previously referred to as Genesis Most cancers Middle, focuses on diagnosing and treating most cancers and learning blood and blood issues. It affords sufferers on-campus radiology scans, instructional providers and participation in medical trials and investigative research.

And earlier this yr, CARTI introduced plans to broaden its Little Rock campus to incorporate a $25 million, 35,000-SF on-site surgical procedure heart. Building on the undertaking was anticipated to be accomplished within the fall of 2022.

CARTI is also constructing an $18 million, 25,000-SF most cancers therapy heart in Pine Bluff. It’s projected to open early subsequent yr.

Comfort for Sufferers

Baxter Regional’s Fox mentioned that about three years in the past it began contemplating how most cancers care was dealt with on the hospital. There’s been a rise in most cancers sufferers, and Baxter Regional treats 1000’s of most cancers sufferers from north central Arkansas and southern Missouri.

However the hospital had one location for medical oncology, one other for radiation remedy and a 3rd for imaging.

“It was form of difficult in the event you’re a most cancers affected person, navigating the a number of … areas,” Fox mentioned. “We felt like we may do higher, and we needed to make enhancements in that.”

Baxter needed to place all of its most cancers providers in a single spot.

It collaborated with Highlands Oncology Group, which has about two dozen medical doctors and areas in Fayetteville, Rogers and Springdale.

“Highlands Oncology may be very effectively revered and does an excessive amount of work within the northwest Arkansas market,” Fox mentioned.

“So we collaborated to develop this most cancers therapy heart for the betterment of the sufferers in our explicit market.”

The undertaking is designed by Core Architects Inc. of Rogers, and the overall contractor is Crossland Building Co. of Columbus, Kansas.

“We have been actually excited to convey the entire providers underneath one roof with our holistic method to most cancers remedy,” Fox mentioned. “And sufferers will profit from being surrounded by their household and their help system, … so that they’ll have the ability to return to a productive life following their most cancers care.”