Central Kentucky Cancer Program unveils its new Cancer Care Center
October 15, 2004 - Danville, Kentucky - Standing inside a room on one corner of the third floor at Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, Ron Barbato is happy. This room looks nothing like what one would expect inside a hospital. At one side of the room, a large television sits inside a wooden chest in front of a leather couch and two chairs that become sleeper beds. The room also holds tables and chairs, and includes a kitchen area and bath facilities. While the room appears very similar to an efficiency apartment, it is actually the Family Resource Center that is part of the new Cancer Care Center that opened recently at Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center. For Barbato and others, the room and 12 adjacent private patient rooms are so much more.
"This is a dream come true," says Barbato, a cancer survivor who, together with fellow cancer survivor Tim Robbins, initiated efforts to create the Central Kentucky Cancer
Program (CKCP) in partnership with the Ephraim McDowell Health Care Foundation, which championed the Cancer Care Center. The CKCP was created in 1996 through a collaborative effort among the Ephraim McDowell Health Care Foundation, Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, local physicians, cancer survivors and concerned citizens. The group's goal was to make cancer patients' experiences a little more bearable by keeping them close to home for appropriate care.
"When Ron and I began the effort to create the CKCP, we were both blessed to know where we could turn for help and
support," said Robbins. "Our dream for the CKCP was to be able to do that for others with
cancer." He added, "When people receive a diagnosis of cancer, how many of them know where to turn for information? We want to be able to provide that place through the Central Kentucky Cancer Program and the Cancer Care
Center." The Cancer Care Center encompasses 12 patient rooms - all of them private - at the Medical Center. None of the rooms, however, look like the typical hospital room but instead look similar to what one would have at home. The walls are papered in warm colors, and a bedspread on the bed
- that's right, a bedspread - coordinates with the paper and other furnishings inside the room, including a wide sleeper chair and another upholstered chair positioned below an adjustable reading light. The Cancer Care Center is the newest service provided by the CKCP, which has focused its efforts the last eight years on enhancing local services relating to the prevention,
diagnosis and treatment of cancer through a community education-based approach. Robbins noted that the Cancer Care Center was designed not only to enhance the care provided to cancer patients, but also to support the patients' family members.
"When someone in your family is diagnosed with cancer, you feel helpless, like you have no
control," Robbins said. "The Cancer Care Center allows family members to stay close to their loved one in the hospital, because the patient needs that support of
family." The Family Resource Center is intended to be a resource room where families of cancer patients can interact. Cancer information is also available inside the resource room, and a computer inside the room provides access to more cancer information available via the Internet. Robbins and Barbato have no doubt that the Cancer Care Center is going to enhance the care provided to cancer patients and their families.
"Individuals who have cancer often require hospitalization more than once during their course of
treatment," said Audrey Powell, R.N., M.S.N., vice president and chief nursing officer at the Medical Center.
"Through the Cancer Care Center, we are trying to make their hospital stay a little more
comfortable." The Cancer Care Center also centralizes cancer care services, which will benefit cancer patients and their families as well as the nursing and medical staffs that care for those patients. Having a centralized unit means that the cancer patients will see a consistent staff during their different admissions. It also allows the nursing staff to have additional education in caring for patients with special needs.
Financial support to create the Cancer Care Center came from generous donations made by individuals and businesses from throughout the community and was spearheaded by the
CKCP.
"Everyone on the CKCP board is dedicated to helping others with cancer, because every family has been affected by it in some
way," Robbins said. "The CKCP has worked so hard to offer so many services to the community, including new technology, free cancer screenings and cancer support groups. Now, people can actually see the Cancer Care Center . . . something that's going to make a great difference in the lives of cancer
patients."