Mercycare expanding services

Critically ill patients in the Albany Diocese now have more care options available to them, thanks to two new efforts by Mercycare Corporation.

Mercycare recently announced its new affiliation -- through St. Peter's Hospital -- with Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare of Boston, which will provide expanded adult oncology services; and the upcoming merger of St. Peter's Hospice with Capital District Hospice.

Changes

The agreement with Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare will include several changes for Mercycare/St. Peter's Hospital:

* Joint consultation and referral services between physicians at St. Peter's and Dana-Farber;

* Educational programs at Mercycare/St. Peter's, including training sessions for St. Peter's physicians from those at Dana-Farber;

* Access for patients to "multidisciplinary clinics" for treatment of cancers including breast, lung and prostate; and

* The opportunity for patients to participate in research clinical trials.

The latter option, said Mercycare public relations representative Ellen Boyle, has given critically ill patients new hope. "Our patients are so excited about the opportunity" to use the resources of cutting-edge medical advances, she told The Evangelist.

Enthusiasm

Physicians and hospital staff, she added, are enthused that Dana-Farber, renowned for its oncology care, "will support us with things like rare tumors and bone marrow transplants. We will have the opportunity to do telemedicine with them over the phone lines and with computer screens."

Although patients had been referred to Dana-Farber/Partners CancerCare in the past, the new affiliation will mean a smoother transition for those with difficult-to-treat cancers.

Ms. Boyle explained that Dana-Farber will also benefit from working with the patients in St. Peter's comprehensive cancer care program. More than a million residents of the Capital Region receive care from the Capital Health Network's seven-hospital health system, of which St. Peter's is a part.

Hospice merger

As of April 1997, St. Peter's Hospice and Capital District Hospice are expected to merge into one organization, which will serve nine of the 14 counties in the Albany Diocese: Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, Montgomery, Saratoga, Warren, Columbia, Greene and Schoharie.

Hospice, which began in the Capital Region in the late 1970s, provides medical care as well as emotional and spiritual support to patients in the final stages of terminal illnesses. The combined program will serve more than 350 patients per day.

Steven Boyle, St. Peter's Hospital/Mercycare Corp. president and CEO, noted that the two Hospices have "a long history of working together" and called the decision to merge "a creative yet tactical solution" to bring quality care to the terminally ill while ensuring the future of Hospice in the Capital District.

According to Ms. Boyle, present Hospice sites are not expected to change after the merger, which will simply unite them under an "overall Hospice umbrella." The new program is presently searching for a new name, to be announced at a later date.

(11-21-96) [[In-content Ad]]