By Mary Spicer

MEADVILLE TRIBUNE

Meadville-area cancer patients will no longer have to make the long trek to Pittsburgh to participate in clinical trials conducted by University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cancer Centers. A new affiliation agreement puts the Erie-based Regional Cancer Center and its satellite facilities in Meadville and Ashtabula, Ohio, under UPMC management.

“We’ve been committed to providing cancer care in the Meadville area,” RCC Interim Chief Executive Officer Tom Fucci said Tuesday. “The management agreement announced with UPMC fortifies our plan to stay in the Meadville area.”

Plans for expanding the center’s Meadville presence are already in place.

In June, Meadville’s Zoning Hearing Board granted a variance requested by RCC for its facility on the southeast corner of Park Avenue and Linden Street. While zoning regulations required any structure on the property to be set back at least 25 feet from both roadways, the center’s architect successfully argued that the only expansion option giving ambulances and other vehicles the necessary access for the building only allows a 15-foot setback along the Linden side of the building.

Construction is expected to begin before the end of the month. Once work is complete, services now provided at the center’s 1116 Park Ave. facility will be consolidated into the expanded structure.

RCC was established by its partner hospitals, Hamot Medical Center and St. Vincent Health System, in 1987. Since its chief executive officer resigned for personal reasons slightly over two years ago, the center has been jointly operated, with Fucci representing St. Vincent and Richard Long, a Hamot physician, serving as both interim CEO and interim medical director.

A 60-day getting-to-know-you stage begins immediately, Fucci said Tuesday. “Hopefully they will be managing the facility fully by Dec. 1.”

Before the decision to team up with UPMC was reached, a task force from RCC spent almost two years researching affiliation options.

“Collaborations between community cancer centers and academic medical centers are an emerging trend in the field of cancer care that has important benefits,” RCC officials said Monday in a prepared statement. “UPMC Cancer Centers work in tandem with the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, one of only 41 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the country. The UPCI is the only such designated center in Western Pennsylvania.

“Closer relationships between physicians at UPMC Cancer Center and RCC physicians will facilitate wider adoption of new techniques and treatments,” the statement continued. “The same protocols, clinical trials and expertise patients would have access to at a UPMC Cancer Center will be available to them through all locations of the Regional Cancer Centers.”

Of the 44 providers in the UPMC Cancer Centers network, RCC, including its satellite facilities, will be second in size only to the Pittsburgh headquarters.

RCC’s ongoing involvement with a revolutionary cancer treatment developed by Erie resident John Kanzius will not be disrupted by the management change. “The RCC will continue as a research site for the Kanzius RF generator cancer treatment and related clinical trials are included in the plan for moving forward,” according to the RCC statement. “Additionally, the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has been active with the Kanzius project from the beginning.”

The RCC Board of Directors will continue to control the organization. St. Vincent and Hamot will continue to share equal ownership under the new five-year agreement and UPMC will be paid a percentage of patient revenue as its management fee.

“Keeping ownership with Hamot and St. Vincent was important in the negotiation,” Long said. “The Regional Cancer Centers are community assets. It’s important to keep those owned locally and the decision-making at the local level.”

No decisions have been made about whether the center’s signs will reflect UPMC’s involvement.

All current doctors are continuing their practices at RCC under the new arrangement.

In February, shortly before Meadville Medical Center opened its new Oncology Wellness Institute in Vernon Township, RCC sent a letter to its local patients explaining that MMC was denying hospital privileges for RCC doctors.

In late March, MMC announced that RCC’s physicians would be allowed to admit cancer patients they’re already treating — but no new patients.

At the time, RCC officials issued a prepared statement saying that they hoped to continue discussions with MMC “regarding limitations they have placed on future care for all patients in the Meadville area — current and new.”

Under the new management agreement, “Our physicians are still employed by Regional Cancer Center,” Long said Tuesday. “The same rules apply.” Although new patients must travel to Erie if they require hospitalization, Long described the overall number of in-patient cancer patients as “fairly small.”

Duane Koller, MMC’s director of marketing, declined comment.



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.