Steeplechase Cancer Center Provides Patient-centered Care in Community Setting

Steeplechase Cancer Center at Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, New Jersey, was established in 2007 in response to community needs for easily accessible high-quality cancer care. The center is named for the steeplechase horse race, held each October in the neighboring community of Far Hills, New Jersey. Proceeds from the race are donated to the center and go to support expanded facilities and services.

The cancer center occupies a large, state-of-the-art facility and offers a full range of services. “It houses everything you need for diagnosis and treatment of cancer in one place,” notes Joan Perrone, RPh, one of four pharmacists who service the infusion center at Steeplechase. Somerset Medical Center is the only full-service hospital in the county, and “it’s an integral part of the community,” she says. “We do community fundraisers and are well supported by the community.”

Kathleen Toomey, MD, medical director of the cancer center, notes that patients are not only able to get their care close to home but are able to continue to see their own doctors. “The doctors who know the patients best are here and can help coordinate their care with the many specialists.”

In addition to medical, radiation, and surgical oncology, Steeplechase’s services include plastic surgery, a breast care center, genetic counseling, a cancer registry, clinical trials, rehabilitation medicine, palliative care and pain management, and nutrition counseling. “Besides the clinical trials that are available to patients, there are four multidisciplinary groups [breast, prostate, colorectal, and lung] that discuss cases. In the case of breast and colon cancer, all new cases are discussed in a multidisciplinary forum,” Toomey says. The Tobacco Quit center, one of eight in New Jersey, is available to help patients stop smoking using a comprehensive approach.

Somerset Medical Center is a clinical research affiliate of The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, allowing patients access to clinical trials. Currently, patients are enrolled in treatment trials for breast, prostate, renal, bladder, and colorectal cancers as well as chemo therapyinduced peripheral neuropathy. There are also industry registry trials in multiple myeloma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia and a large annual screening trial for prostate cancer. “We accrued 92 patients to trials last year, 23 on treatment trials and 69 on the screening trial,” Toomey notes.

A complementary medicine suite provides a variety of services including yoga, meditation, and massage. Other resources include a patient library, an onsite wellness boutique, a survivorship program, a healing garden, and educational and support groups for patients and their families. Toomey notes that “it is a beautiful facility and patients appreciate that if they have to have a terrible illness; the surroundings can help lift their spirits.”

The Steeplechase Cancer Center earned its 3-year Community Comprehensive Cancer Program accreditation from the American College of Surgeons in 2008, and it ranks in the 99th percentile for patient satisfaction scores in New Jersey.

Inpatient services are provided at the 35-bed Paul R. Nardoni Oncology Pavilion. In recognition of the importance of involving families in patients’ care, patient rooms have sofa beds for visitors wishing to stay overnight in addition to amenities such as blanket warmers, lounge chairs, showers, refrigerators, flat-screen televisions, and DVD/VHS players.

Patricia Molinelli, MS, RN, APN-C, AOCNS, is nurse manager of the inpatient and outpatient oncology units. She came to the center from large academic medical centers in New York and values the intimacy afforded by working in a smaller setting “I try to know one thing that is important to every patient,” she says. Her own father was treated at the center, and she takes pride in providing the same quality of care for all patients. Care at the center is patientcentered. As Molinelli describes it, “I am the gatekeeper, the coordinator of all these orbits. The patient is the sun.” She views family members and other caregivers as “an extension of the patient” and takes care to provide for their comfort with a well-stocked pantry, games, and DVDs for visitor use. “We try to take a lot of the burden off the family,” she explains. She also points to the latest technology in evidence throughout the center. “We rush to get whatever is available to reduce medical errors and increase patient safety.” Her current goal is to incorporate genetics into the cancer program.

Other plans include a new interdisciplinary group for lymphoma, myeloma, and leukemias, and a head and neck group as well as gynecology-oncology and palliative care programs, and a men’s cancer support group. A Day of Hope is planned for cancer survivor month.