The Greater Cincinnati Region Gains Access to a New Cancer Center

For more than 150 years, St. Elizabeth Healthcare has served the Greater Cincinnati region. St. Elizabeth Healthcare now operates five facilities and more than 115 primary care and specialty offices throughout Northern Kentucky.

St. Elizabeth recently opened a new 250,000-square-foot Cancer Center that will meet the needs of patients in both the region and nation. With the ability to treat nearly 500 patients in a day, St. Elizabeth’s six-story facility will lead the way in providing personalized care and treatment in the region.

St. Elizabeth has recently expanded its Medical Village Pharmacy on our Edgewood campus to include a Specialty Pharmacy. This program allows the organization to fill prescriptions for patients with critical and complex conditions, such as cancer, HIV and hep C.

The Cancer Care program at St. Elizabeth Healthcare provides advanced surgical, radiation, and medical oncology (chemotherapy) services for the treatment of cancer. The team of cancer experts includes surgical, medical and radiation oncologists, medical physicists, registered radiation therapists, certified oncology nurses, social workers, registered dietitians, pastoral care staff and many others.

The St. Elizabeth Cancer Center will offer cancer detection, diagnosis and care — all under one roof. With an emphasis on precision medicine and genomic health, screening education and prevention, clinical research and advanced, innovative technology, St. Elizabeth will provide a seamless experience for patients undergoing treatment.

St. Elizabeth is also a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, consulting with Mayo Clinic cancer specialists and providing patients access to second opinions. In addition, as a member of the UK Markey Cancer Center Affiliate and Research Networks, patients will also have access to additional clinical programs. To staff the Cancer Center, St. Elizabeth currently employs 60 specialized clinicians. Over the next several years, the system plans to hire additional medical oncologists, surgeons and ancillary support members.

Midmark RTLS (Dayton, OH) is being implemented in the new cancer center to streamline the patient visit and enhance care team collaboration. Patients, providers and staff wear lightweight locator badges that automatically update the Patient Flow Optimization software, giving staff a view of where patients are, how long they’ve been waiting, who has seen them, and who needs to see them next.

In addition to real-time patient flow optimization, the system captures historical data. Using Midmark RTLS reports, administrators can assess data insights on patient wait times, room utilization and more. St. Elizabeth plans to use this data to continually monitor the patient experience and make data-driven process improvements.

St. Elizabeth also uses RTLS to automate notification of chemotherapy delivery to patient rooms. When a pharmacy technician wearing an RTLS badge arrives in the patient room, their presence triggers a visual cue that notifies the infusion nurses that the medication arrived, and the nurse can begin the infusion.

 Takeaway: St. Elizabeth Healthcare helping to drive the growing trend of health system specialty pharmacy to improve patient care