A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on Dec. 10 for a new cancer center on the Upper East Side that will be the city’s largest freestanding cancer care facility.
The David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), will open for patient care in January 2020. It is a $1.5 billion facility, with 750,000 square feet, located on East 74th Street between York Avenue and the FDR Drive. It will also be MSK’s largest freestanding cancer care facility.
The center will include 1,300 employees, working with up to 1,300 patients every day. The outpatients facility includes 25 floors, with 231 exam rooms, 110 infusion rooms, 37 procedure rooms and 16 inpatient beds for patients needing a short stay.
The new facility will host many different specialties for cancer care, with the aim of easing the process for patients by offerings services in a single visit, and allowing for more collaboration among specialists and care teams, according to MSK. Specialties in the building will include hematologic oncology, interventional radiology, dermatology, and endocrine, head and neck, pulmonary, and thoracic cancers, along with over 300 early phase clinical trials.
“For more than 130 years, MSK has been on the forefront of providing superior clinical care through innovative approaches. The David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at MSK is the next chapter of this vision,” said Craig B. Thompson, MD, President and CEO of MSK. “This facility expands on MSK’s rich history of innovation in patient care and combines the latest, most intuitive technology with the compassionate, efficient care of our staff. This is the future of cancer care.”
The building is named for the late David H. Koch, who donated $150 million toward the facility and was a member of the MSK Boards of Overseers and Managers. Located near the East River, the building was designed to survive a 500-year flood event and to operate at reduced levels of energy consumption, MSK said.
“The vision for the David H. Koch Center for Cancer Care at MSK is to create a caring and healing community where all are engaged, embraced, and empowered,” said Elizabeth McCormick, RN, Chief Nursing Officer of MSK. “That includes the patients we care for, the caregivers at their side, and our researchers, clinicians, and staff who work together in our united mission of conquering cancer.”
More information can be found at mskcc.org.
