St. Joseph's Health and Hackensack Meridian Health opened a new cancer center in Totowa, N.J., on May 25.
The Cancer Center at Totowa is a 70,000-square-foot facility and the second of three centers St. Joseph's and Hackensack Meridian are partnering to build.
"I think we're bringing the talents and the best technologies from both organizations together to address community needs," Robert Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, told Becker's on May 25. "Hackensack Meridian has a partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering to make their 800 clinical trials available to patients. … We've found that one size does not fit all and personalized care is very important."
The center faced challenges such as supply chain delays during the pandemic, but Kevin Slavin, president and CEO of St. Joseph's Health, told Becker's, "[The pandemic] actually was a benefit. Our teams worked hard and were able to redesign the facility based on what we learned during the pandemic. We're very proud. We easily could have put this on the back burner during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the teams worked hard and here we are today."
Conveniently located cancer centers are becoming more important post-pandemic, as many people postponed care the last few years, Mr. Garrett said.