IN THE NEWS | November 4, 2021
Maya Kaufman
Crain's New York Health Pulse
Mount Sinai and BronxCare have opened a 10,000-square-foot cancer facility in the Bronx, the health systems announced Thursday.
The new space on Grand Concourse features 12 exam rooms, chemotherapy and immunotherapy infusion suites, cooling technology to prevent hair loss from chemotherapy, an on-site pharmacy and a private social work office.
Its 35-person staff spans subspecialties and includes medical oncologists and hematologists, surgical oncologists, radiation oncologists, neurosurgeons, urologists, oncology-specialized ENT surgeons, an oncology-certified nursing team and a social worker. Radiation treatment will be available on-site, unlike in BronxCare's previous cancer program, and the facility will offer new neurosurgical options and cancer subspecialties.
Mount Sinai, which has an affiliation with BronxCare, contributed $5 million to fund the new facility. It opened to patients during the summer.
The new space roughly doubles BronxCare's patient capacity to 25,000 to 30,000 visits per year, said Dr. Kevin R. Jain, chief of medical oncology and hematology at BronxCare Health System and the facility's director. Its multidisciplinary team is specifically tailored to meet the needs of South Bronx residents, who have higher incidences of prostate cancer and triple-negative breast cancer, Jain said.
"It's important providers understand the uniqueness of our community," he said.
Making use of its clinicians' diverse specialties, the facility will offer a multidisciplinary tumor board to develop individually tailored treatment plans for patients.
BronxCare operates 859 beds across two hospital divisions serving the south and central Bronx, a long-term care facility, psychiatric and chemical dependency programs and an outpatient network.