WellSpan collaborating with Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center

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An agreement between WellSpan and the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center of Baltimore will provide WellSpan cancer physicians with second opinion services from Johns Hopkins specialists who frequently treat the most complex cases.

York-based WellSpan operates five midstate cancer centers across Adams, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties.

WellSpan sees about 3,400 new cancer diagnoses each year, said Dr. Douglas Arbittier, vice president of oncology services.

For the vast majority of them, treatment in one of WellSpan’s cancer centers will remain the appropriate course, Arbittier said, in keeping with WellSpan’s philosophy of caring for people in the communities where they live.

Only now, they and their doctors will have access to Johns Hopkins as a referral destination for rare and complex cases — or quaternary care, as it is known in the healthcare field.

“Our cancer centers already deliver exceptional care with excellent clinical outcomes,” Arbittier said. “This collaboration will allow us to enhance our programs through the implementation of innovative clinical pathways.”

It also will bring some of Johns Hopkins’ expertise home to the midstate in the form of research collaboration between their staffs, as well as through presentations given by Hopkins’ faculty members at WellSpan facilities.

“Our goal is to make sure our patients have access to the expertise they need, whether it’s through the coordinated and compassionate care of our WellSpan oncology specialists, or it’s through expanded clinical trials at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center,” Arbittier said.

WellSpan also will provide grant funding to be used by the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center to support cancer research, including basic, translational, clinical and population studies.

“We have worked with WellSpan’s strong regional cancer program for many years, and we are enthusiastic about formalizing an agreement that will give WellSpan’s clinicians and patients wider access to the unique expertise of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center team and clinical trials,” said Dr. Kenneth J. Cohen, director of strategic planning and integration, and professor of oncology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

The agreement was signed April 1, and a committee made up of representatives from the two systems have been meeting regularly to implement it, Arbittier said.

It’s also the second cancer care agreement between WellSpan and a Maryland institution in the past year.

Last November, WellSpan announced a collaboration with the University of Maryland on a venture that allows the health system’s doctors to treat patients at the Maryland Proton Treatment Center, opened by the university in February 2016. The Baltimore facility offers proton therapy, an image-guided therapy to treat cancer.