Coeur dAlene-based Kootenai Medical Center plans to expand its cancer services in Sandpoint, Idaho, to meet rising demand from patients in that area of North Idaho.


KMC says it hopes to open a satellite cancer center at Bonner General Hospital, in Sandpoint, by late fall, says Carmen Brochu, KMCs vice president of patient care services. Its leasing 4,000 square feet of space near the main entrance of the hospital for its center, Brochu says. It plans to start remodeling that space by the end of this summer.


The clinic will include four exam rooms, office space, a pharmacy, and an eight-bed infusion suite where patients will receive chemotherapy treatment, she says. The pharmacy at the North Idaho Cancer Center, which KMC operates in Coeur dAlene, currently sends some medications to patients in Sandpoint, but operating a KMC pharmacy in Sandpoint would give patients there access to a broader range of medications and reduce their travel time, Brochu says.


For the past couple of years, KMC has operated a two-day-a-week clinic in leased space in a Sandpoint physicians office, she says. Demand for its services at the Sandpoint clinic, as well as at the 26-bed North Idaho Cancer Center, has been rising, though, so KMC decided to open a larger clinic in Sandpoint to serve its patients in Bonner County and Boundary County, Brochu says.


Residents of those counties represented roughly 17 percent of the North Idaho Cancer Centers patients in 2004, the latest year for which those figures are available, she says. The number of patients at that center has been increasing by about 10 percent a year. KMC hopes that the clinic at Bonner General will absorb about 70 percent of the patients whove had to travel to Coeur dAlene from Bonner and Boundary counties for treatment. Shorter travel times are significant, particularly for cancer patients, because they sometimes need chemotherapy treatments two or three times a week, she says.


Oncology patients usually are very sick, and the medications often make them even sickerand uncomfortable when they travel, Brochu says.


KMC plans to recruit an oncologist to work at the Sandpoint clinic and will hire several other employees, including a nurse practitioner. It also expects to move staff members there from the clinic it currently operates in Sandpoint, she says.


Bonner General will provide social services, radiology services, after-hours care, and the availability of its emergency room to KMCs cancer patients, Brochu says. Demand for its diagnostic testing services also will rise as a result of KMCs cancer center there.


Bonner General doesnt have its own oncology department, she says. Oncology services typically are provided by larger hospitals, partly because of the costs involved in providing them.


Bonner General is a 48-bed, nonprofit hospital that offers acute-care services and employs 360. KMC is a 246-bed, publicly-owned hospital that employs 1,600.