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Doctors at the Frank M. and Dorothea Henry Cancer Center at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center are also adding more services and changing their approach to cancer treatment. They want to encourage more of the region's residents to seek local care for cancer.
The expanded facility will be able to handle the cancer patients, such as those with difficult brain tumors or lung and gastrointestinal cancers, who doctors now refer to larger facilities in major metro areas.
"We want people to understand that, as an integrated health system, if they want care they don't have to travel to New York, Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or even (Geisinger's operations base in) Danville," said Glenn Steele, M.D., Geisinger's CEO and president.
The new center's doctors will take a more holistic cancer treatment approach, with alternative medicine and teams of specialists working on each patient. Each team will feature a surgeon, a radiation oncologist, a pathologist and a radiologist with support from dieticians, social service providers and other professionals.
And a "wellness center" will house acupuncture and massage therapists, a garden and other amenities.
In the next six to eight months, center administrators hope to increase nursing and ancillary staff to between 55 and 60 from the current 35. Geisinger, which employs all its physicians, also plans to have 20 full- and part-time doctors, up from nine now.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia-based Fox Chase Cancer Center will continue its partnership with Geisinger to run the cancer center, which was built in 1992.
Center namesake Frank Martz Henry, chairman of The Martz Group, which includes the bus company Martz Trailways, is helping to fund the new facility.
daxelrod@timesshamrock.com
