Published: November 03, 2009 11:13 pm         

Regional teams with Hope Center

Southside hospital, treatment center form health care alliance

TERRE HAUTE — Terre Haute’s Hope Center, a cancer and blood disease clinic, is joining with Terre Haute Regional Hospital as the southside hospital expands its cancer treatment services.

“This will allow us to have [cancer treatment] services A-to-Z,” said Regional CEO Chris Hill on Tuesday morning.

Hope Center doctors Chandra Reddy and Ashis Chakrabarti announced Tuesday morning they were joining the Regional staff and will, starting in January, begin using the hospital’s planned new “infusion center” for their patients.

“We are very proud to be a part of the [Hospital Corporation of America] and Terre Haute Regional Hospital,” Reddy said at a joint news conference with Hill at the hospital.

The Hope Center was recently involved in a services agreement with Terre Haute’s Union Hospital. That agreement ended Oct. 1, Reddy said in an earlier interview with the Tribune-Star.

In order to offer “comprehensive cancer” treatment services at Terre Haute Regional, work has begun on a new 4,500 square-foot outpatient “infusion center” at the 278-bed hospital facility, hospital officials said Tuesday. This new infusion center, which will offer outpatient chemotherapy and other infusion services, will put all of the hospital’s cancer treatment services “under one roof,” said Brian Bauer, chief financial officer for Regional. “We’re excited about it,” he said.

In addition to Reddy and Chakrabarti, “all physicians with appropriate medical staff privileges will be welcome to see and care for their patients in our infusion center,” Bauer said.

The new infusion center, which will be on the southeast corner of the hospital, will add nine new employees to the hospital’s staff, he said.

Despite the new agreement with Terre Haute Regional Hospital, “nothing is going to change from the patient’s perspective,” Reddy said Tuesday. Hope Center doctors will continue to see patients at their offices on Johnson Avenue and at the Hux Cancer Center, he said. “It is the same Hope [Center] services that we are going to continue,” he said.

The Hope Center has been treating cancer patients in the Wabash Valley for 16 years, Reddy said.

Tuesday’s announcement comes just a week after Union Hospital announced a new partnership with AP&S Clinic, a formerly physician-owned multi-location health care provider in Terre Haute. As with AP&S doctors, Reddy said the decision to join with Regional Hospital will allow the Hope Center to reduce its overhead costs and other expenses. The Hope Center sees an average of 20 to 30 patients each day, he said.

“It’s changing times,” Reddy said. However, the Hope Center’s decision to join with Regional Hospital will not result in any changes in doctor-patient relations or patient insurance coverage, he said.

Renovation work has started inside Regional Hospital on the new infusion center. The facility, which has yet to be named, is to open in January, Hill said.



Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.