Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s newest expansion houses a slew of breast cancer care services under one roof.
Breast cancer ranks among Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s top five diagnoses. From 2020 to 2024, the facility’s analytic breast cancer caseload — or the number of breast cancer patients diagnosed and treated there, as opposed to those who started their treatments elsewhere — increased by 50%. Its breast cancer patients are also growing younger.
Enter the incoming Boscia Breast Health Center, which will feature five mammography units and four ultrasound units. A new MRI device will also add imaging capability for breast cancer screening and biopsies. The 8,000-sq.-ft. center will be about 35% larger than Sarasota Memorial’s existing breast health center.
It’s one part of Sarasota Memorial Health Care System’s latest expansion: the new $220-million Milman-Kover Cancer Pavilion, slated to open next spring. The seven-story, 200,000-sq.-ft. facility will provide a full array of outpatient cancer services along the continuum of cancer care — from prevention to diagnosis to treatment to clinical trials — under one roof.
The Cancer Pavilion will belong to Sarasota Memorial’s Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute. The institute already includes the Radiation Oncology Center, which opened on the University Parkway campus in 2020, and an eight-story oncology inpatient and surgical tower, which opened on Sarasota Memorial’s main campus in 2021. The new pavilion will connect to the Oncology Tower via a pedestrian sky bridge.
Dr. Richard Brown, medical director of the Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute, says the idea for the expansions arose around 2016. At the time, up to 45% of cancer patients left Sarasota County to receive care elsewhere. His team wanted to offer those services — and better — closer to home.
“Cancer care is rapidly changing,” Brown says. “We want to be on the forefront of that change.”
“Cancer care is rapidly changing. We want to be on the forefront of that change.” —Dr. Richard Brown, medical director of the Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute
The Cancer Pavilion will include two linear accelerators for high-precision radiation therapy, an infusion center and physician offices. Four operating rooms will be available; Brown suspects most surgeries will be related to breast cancer. There will also be a demonstration kitchen to promote healthy eating for cancer prevention.
Sarasota Memorial is hiring around 80 new team members to support the Cancer Pavilion. Two breast navigators are already on the hospital staff to guide patients through their cancer journeys. Now, they’ll be embedded in the same building as providers for easier collaboration and access.
The team already meets for “tumor boards,” where complex cases are discussed among a variety of physicians, surgeons and navigators to decide the most appropriate treatment plan. There’s a breast tumor board meeting every Tuesday morning.
“The whole plan for the Cancer Pavilion is pooling all these different elements we have in Sarasota together under one roof, so that patients could actually go from floor to floor to floor and get all the care necessary for their cancer,” Brown says. “It’s taking an elevator and having it all done in one place. That’s patient-friendly.”