Stanford Health Care and Sutter Health have signed a letter of intent to explore opportunities to jointly provide cancer care for patients and their families in the East Bay region of the San Francisco/Oakland metropolitan area. The intent of the collaboration is to increase access to high-quality cancer care for patients as close to home as possible by building on the strength of Stanford’s leadership in cancer care and clinical research, the Stanford Medicine network and Sutter’s integrated network.
Here are five things to know about the joint cancer care effort:
1. The new East Bay oncology collaboration would help local patients simplify care coordination, reduce travel time and focus on treatment and recovery.
2. Initial activities between the two entities will focus on ways to build upon current and developing cancer-related services and care settings already in place within the two organizations’ respective networks. In addition, the collaboration will joint efforts to increase access to cancer clinical trials and to make other enhancements to choice and quality of care for East Bay patients and their families.
3. Joint discussions also include potential plans to develop an integrated, multidisciplinary cancer center in the East Bay, modeled on the highly successful Stanford Cancer Center South Bay concept. The planned outpatient cancer center would serve as a local hub for cancer care and offer East Bay patients and their families access to the most advanced, complete and coordinated care from screening through survivorship.
4. A collaboration between Stanford and Sutter Health would greatly improve access for East Bay cancer patients to new opportunities for clinical care and clinical research, including an expanded array of clinical trials.
5. The opportunity will greatly enhance their shared commitment to health equity by improving access to exceptional care for underrepresented minorities in the community who often lack access to advanced care options and the ability to participate in clinical trials.
“With this new collaboration, Stanford Health Care aims to bring the full complement of its world-class cancer prevention, treatment and clinical research programs to serve patients in the East Bay,” said David Entwistle, president, and CEO of Stanford Health Care. “Partnering with Sutter Health, with its well-established, high-quality cancer program in the area, is the ideal opportunity, and we are pleased to move forward with them in this effort.”
“As an integrated network, Sutter Health has proudly provided accessible, high-quality care to our patients across the East Bay for over a century, and we’re excited to build on this legacy,” said Sarah Krevans, president and CEO of Sutter Health. “This announcement is an example of Sutter and Stanford’s shared commitment as not-for-profit health systems to provide quality, compassionate and convenient care, and to do so in a way that delivers the best outcomes for our patients and our community.”
