The financial crisis facing Steward hospitals is one of the most significant health care challenges our state has faced in years. The threat to patients served at Steward’s seven acute-care hospitals has put a spotlight once again on the importance of community-based hospitals and the devastating impact if they close

It’s why the Healey Administration, legislature, and local officials — as well as community and health care leaders — are all coming together with a great urgency to solve this situation and preserve access to care.
We can offer one more reason why this work is so important: access to cancer care.

People don’t often think about cancer care as community-based. But in Massachusetts, it is. Community-based care has been a foundation of how we treat patients at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for decades.

For far too long, patients from communities that have been marginalized and under-served have faced too many barriers to cancer services – services like education, screening, prevention, and access to clinical trials – leading to health disparities. According to the American Cancer Society, Black residents have lower five-year cancer survival rates than white people and are more likely to be diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer, when treatment is more difficult and less successful.

To address these inequities, Dana-Farber partners with several community hospitals in the region — including Steward-run St. Elizabeth’s in Brighton and Holy Family Hospital in Methuen.  Our licensed community cancer centers are linked with community hospitals in Lawrence, Milford, Foxboro, and Londonderry, NH.

Through this model, patients receive the more advanced outpatient medical oncology services at Dana-Farber in Boston, but also receive other aspects of their care — from chemotherapy to treatment to imaging and procedures services — in their local community.

This balance is important for many of our most vulnerable patients. One of our oncology nurse navigators is working in the Merrimack Valley as a part of a community engaged collaborative, helping to ensure patients get screened for cancer. We know early detection is an important key to survival. Following one such community cancer screening, a local woman was diagnosed with colon cancer and the team helped her through each next step, in her native language, assuring she clearly understood the processes. Within two weeks she was scheduled for an oncology appointment at Dana-Farber and will receive outpatient aftercare close to home at Dana-Farber’s Merrimack Valley location.

Making this kind of care more easily accessible for patients, in the world of cancer treatment, can be the difference between life and death.
What we are seeing is that community-based cancer care improves prevention and treatment while also reducing costs. As with other forms of health care, it is generally much more cost effective to treat cancer care in a community setting than at an academic medical institution. It’s cheaper for patients too. Patients who don’t need to travel to Boston for all of their appointments save money, time, and hours of productivity.

Our goal, ultimately, is a day when no barrier – be it lack of research opportunities, lack of trust, or lack of access to care and support – stands in the way of anyone and the cancer care they need, when they need it. It’s why we are so proud of the partnerships we have with local community hospitals to deliver cancer care. We know how essential it is to so many of the patients we serve.

This is why as we navigate this Steward crisis, we have made clear that none of our patients in Steward community hospitals will see an interruption in their cancer care, no matter what. But the work is bigger than that.

We hope and believe that a goal as we emerge from this crisis should be a recommitment to supporting and strengthening our community-based hospitals. It is key to enhancing cancer care for people who desperately need it. And it’s essential to building a more equitable, affordable, and accessible health care system for all.

Let that be our shared commitment and the positive legacy that emerges from this difficult moment.

Laurie H. Glimcher, MD is President & CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Christopher Lathan, MD, MS, MPH is Chief Clinical Access and Equity Officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Steward Health Care-run Holy Family Hospital in Methuen. Dana-Farber partners with several community hospitals in the region — including Steward-run St. Elizabeth’s in Brighton and Holy Family Hospital. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)