The Arizona Cancer Center and Banner Health Announce Partnership to Create Comprehensive Cancer Center in Phoenix
Arizona Cancer Patients will Benefit from Enhanced Level of Care
after approval by the Banner Health Board on Dec. 9, Banner Health (Phoenix) and the Arizona Cancer Center at The University of Arizona (Tucson) announced a partnership to establish a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Phoenix.
The Center will be the primary component of the Banner Health oncology service line, which provides services in Banner’s seven acute-care hospitals in the Phoenix area.
The partnership will join two distinctive health care leaders in Arizona with a shared focus:
- The nonprofit Banner Health is the largest provider of both hospital and cancer services in Arizona, and provides more than 35 percent of hospital-based cancer care in Maricopa County.
- The Arizona Cancer Center, a center of excellence at The University of Arizona College of Medicine, is one of only 39 centers in the nation designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a comprehensive cancer center, earning a national and international reputation for its research and innovative patient care.
The primary beneficiaries of the collaboration are patients and their families. This collaboration will elevate the current levels of care through facilitating access to care and research, as well as innovative treatments and education. Additionally, the institutions’ joint contributions will support community-based cancer research by providing increased visibility and opportunities for collaboration with local community cancer researchers and oncologists. Banner Health cancer patients in particular will gain from access to a full spectrum of clinical trials only available through NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers.
“The mandate of the Arizona Cancer Center, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, is to serve all the people in Arizona and in the Southwest,” said David S. Alberts, M.D., director of the Arizona Cancer Center. “Our new partnership with Banner Health represents an opportunity to provide thousands of Arizonans with state-of-the-art cancer care, and to significantly increase the number of cancer patients on clinical trials.”
“This partnership will serve as a model of collaboration for the betterment of patients and clinicians throughout the Southwest,” said Susan Edwards, Banner Health Arizona Region president.
About the Arizona Cancer Center
The Arizona Cancer Center at The University of Arizona, the state’s premier National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. To offer advanced clinical care supported by research for patients throughout the state, the Center has a partnership with University Medical Center in Tucson. The Center also has a research affiliation with Scottsdale Healthcare and more than a dozen research and education offices distributed throughout the state. Its 250 physician and scientist members are working to fulfill the Center’s mission to prevent and cure cancer. For more information, go to http://www.azcc.arizona.edu/.
