Patty & George Hoag Cancer Center reopens after renovations
Monday was the first time that Melinda Hoag Smith saw the completed renovation of the cancer center that bears her family name with all its bells and whistles. Hoag Smith said she’d seen sections of it as work was underway over the last two years, but hadn’t yet had a chance to see it up and operating.
The center officially reopened just last week. As Hoag Smith arrived to take a look Monday, the hallways bustled with nurses coming to and from patients, with no shortage of responsibilities to be handled.
“When I walked in through the front door, I thought that this place felt so peaceful and welcoming,” said Hoag Smith, the president and chief executive of the George Hoag Foundation.
“I just really like the feel of it — the openness — so when patients come here, not only do they have beautiful surroundings, but they’re coming to the best medical and cancer care certainly in our area and beyond.”
She smiled as she paused and looked at a wall decorated with photos of her late parents, George and Patty Hoag, as well as a family portrait in which she can be seen. Her husband, Chuck Smith, who serves as the executive director of the foundation, joked he always stopped by the wall to see the photo of Melinda.
Construction began in 2021 on the Patty & George Hoag Cancer Center, which initially opened in 1990, to expand and redesign its existing infusion floor and the addition of more physicians’ offices to bring in more experts beneath the same roof. Services were temporarily shifted elsewhere to other parts of the hospital network.
Robert Braithwaite, president and chief executive officer of Hoag Hospital, said the move to renovate came out of a desire to expand into developing technology.
“Technology drives a lot of cancer care and we needed to incorporate more state of the art technology,” Braithwaite said, adding, for example, that on the first floor of the center, which focuses on radiology and oncology, there are now linear accelerators that can target cancerous tissues more precisely to avoid damaging potentially healthy tissues.
The expansions to the center allows for patients to access care from top-down, according to Braithwaite, with experts to handle scheduling, labwork, pharmaceuticals and medical experts that work on individual treatment plans. Patients additionally have the ability to be treated together or alone depending on their preferences. There are also amenities for family members and caregivers who are sharing those same spaces while accompanying a patient.
“A lot of [our design notes] comes directly from the patients. What do they need? What do they want? Over our years of so many patients, you learn what they need,” Braithwaite said. “In healthcare generally, it’s episodic. I get this here. I get that there and the next thing here. Usually, the patient is moving through the system at different points and locations.
“In the cancer center, we took everything and said, ‘Let’s have everything move around the patient’ and, so, when they come here, all their laboratory work is done here. Their chemo infusions are done here. All their social services that they might need are done here. Financial assistance is done here. Medical oncology is upstairs, done here. Surgical oncology, it’s all in one place where the whole system moves around the patient as opposed to the patient moving around the system.”
Hoag Smith nodded to the hospital recently passing its 70th year in operation last fall, describing her involvement in the family legacy as “amazing.”
“My grandparents, along with my father that started the George Hoag Family Foundation, which was the benefactor of the hospital, they just loved this community,” Hoag Smith said, adding that the hospital was a memorial to her grandparents, George and Grace Hoag.
“She wanted something for this community that would go on and prosper,” Hoag Smith said of her grandmother.
“My dad lived very close on Lido; he would come up to the hospital almost every day,” she continued. “He was chairman of the board for a very long time and he was active in planning and it was really his love. When I say our family is really connected, we have had a love affair with this hospital for a long time.”
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