Warrenville cancer center offers variety of outpatient diagnostics
Battling cancer is difficult enough without forcing patients to travel to multiple locations to get the services they need.
That belief is what inspired Marianne Huml to join the Central DuPage Hospital staff in 2003 and work on the Winfield facility's effort to build a comprehensive cancer center.
"Our scientific advances have offered so much to patients," said Huml, CDH's director of oncology education and multidisciplinary care. "But to try to get patients access to them without all of these different locations, appointments and wait times, is a challenge."
Seven years after Huml signed on, the newly opened Central DuPage Hospital Cancer Center in Warrenville is the latest such facility to offer a variety of outpatient diagnostics, treatment and support services at a single location - this one along Weaver Parkway, southeast of I-88 and Winfield Road.
"Patients don't have to go to five places to see five physicians," Huml said. "They can come to one place to see five physicians."
Starting in November, patients also will have access to the first proton therapy center in Illinois when the CDH Proton Center is set to open next door.
In the meantime, Huml said, the $35 million cancer center has exceeded her expectations. "It's beautiful," she said.
The design of the 48,000-square-foot building was inspired by responses to questionnaires from CDH employees and patients who requested a healing atmosphere.
With plenty of natural lighting, artwork on the walls and a green-and-blue color scheme, the interior is designed to make patients feel calm and positive, according to Corinne Haviley, associate chief nurse.
CDH officials say features that set the facility apart from other cancer centers include its on-site clinical lab and a pharmacy where chemotherapy treatments are prepared.
The second floor includes an infusion center with both private and open treatment rooms.
"There are some people who like to converse with other patients," Haviley said. "They want somebody to watch TV with them."
Then there are those who prefer to receive treatments in one of the private rooms, which are a far cry from a traditional hospital room.
"We want to make them (patients) feel like they are at home," Huml said. "We tried to use as much lighting and furniture and fixtures as somebody would put in their home."
Even the radiation treatment rooms on the facility's first floor have large screens built into the ceilings that glow blue when in use.
"It is an image that people can look at, and kind of escape into, and feel kind of drawn into it," Haviley said.
The facility's radiation oncology services include HDR, or high dose rate, brachytherapy, stereotactic body radiotherapy and PET/CT imaging. There's also a TomoTherapy machine, which delivers image-guided radiation that targets only the tumor and spares surrounding tissue.
"Anything we have in this building is like the Porsche of radiation therapy," said Maureen Brinkman, an oncology social worker.
Previously, radiation therapy was outsourced. And PET/CT imaging was done in a portable trailer in the CDH parking lot two days a week.
Brinkman said being able to get to get a PET/CT scan five days a week reduces the waiting time for results.
"We can send a patient downstairs to get the PET scan," she said. "The person reading it can call the doctor upstairs and be like, 'This is what I'm seeing,' Of course, it's just initial. But it's such a huge relief to the patient that they know what's in front of them."
Then there's the fact the cancer center has a social worker like Brinkman, as well as a full-time dietitian. The center will provide a variety of support services for patients and their families, including nutritional and psychosocial counseling, yoga classes, massage therapy and a knitting group.
Brinkman said group sessions are important because they help patients come together to provide emotional support for one another.
"There's a huge psychological component," she added. "Research indicates that if we don't address that, all the treatments in the world are not going to help you lead a better life if this has really set you back. So that's what I'm here for - the emotional side."
Healing: Center features include 'Porsche of radiation therapy'
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