WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — With the snip of scissors, this marked the end of a roughly three-year, $15 million expansion and renovation project of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.
The more than 10,000 square foot facility has 22 physician exam rooms and 28 chemotherapy bays, complete with massage chairs, televisions, and iPad.
“We wanted to make sure this was as comfortable and comforting of an environment as possible,” said Michelle Gaida, the Director for Cancer Services at UPMC North Central, Pennsylvania.
The hospital says it is the only treatment center in the region to be able to offer scalp cooling equipment to its chemotherapy patients.
“Greater than 10 percent of patients choose not to receive chemo or chose a less efficacious treatment because of the fear of hair loss,” said Gaida.
The hospital says the cooling equipment uses the cap to cool down hair follicles by a few degrees during chemotherapy treatments which protects them and prevents hair from falling out.
Gaida says this project was essential to the growing demand for the center's services.
“We are still screening, so we are catching cancers earlier, which is great, so we are diagnosing more.”
