Click to watch: Newest Siteman Cancer Center Building
Read more: Cancer Care, Transformed
About the Gary C. Werths Building at Siteman Cancer Center
This space is dedicated solely to providing the best outpatient cancer care available. It is located at 4500 Forest Park Avenue, at the southwest corner of Forest Park and Taylor avenues. (The site previously included a parking lot and an undeveloped lot.) The building includes five floors of clinic space, as well as an elevated, enclosed pedestrian link to connect the facility to the rest of the Medical Campus.
Background
Since 1999, Siteman Cancer Center’s main outpatient location has been the Center for Advanced Medicine, also on the Washington University Medical Campus. We now treat 70,000 people, including 12,000 newly diagnosed patients, every year. Our growth includes an increasing number of patients who travel from across the country and internationally for treatment. (It also includes our Siteman Kids at St. Louis Children’s Hospital partnership and the creation of the Siteman Cancer Network.)
Enhancing Patient and Family Care
Our patients are at the heart of everything our WashU Medicine physicians, our BJC Healthcare nurses and other care providers do. This new facility provides a central home for nearly all aspects of advanced outpatient cancer care. We put great thought into designing a space for healing that is comfortable for patients and their loved ones. The setting accommodates more patients and additional cancer specialists.
What does patient-centered design mean?
In this case, it means we designed treatment areas that a patient will remain in as much as possible. Instead of asking the patient to visit different locations on the medical campus, we have the numerous members of the care team visit the patient in one setting.
It means teams of cancer care specialists – incorporating the latest advances in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer – as well as support services from social workers, psychologists and others, come to patients in the new center.
It means patients have access to hundreds of clinical trials, many of which aren’t available elsewhere.
Ease of accessibility is also an important focus and includes:
- Second-level pedestrian link to connect the new facility to the rest of the medical campus
- Location next to a hotel for patients from out of town
- Transportation
- Parking located within the same building
- Easy access to public transportation (MetroBus and MetroLink)