The Power of Collaboration

By Todd Stevens, President & CEO

At Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center, we have one mission: Improve survivorship and lessen the burden of cancer. But because the disease is all-encompassing, we seek out partners who will help deliver comprehensive care to patients.

Today, through our partnerships, we have specialized solutions that treat this incredibly complex disease. But as our ability to manage cancer care evolves, so does the necessity to deliver this expertise close to home for as many people as possible. At Mary Bird Perkins, we’ve made it a priority to be a leader in collaborations and partnerships with physicians, hospitals, academic institutions and communities – all like-minded organizations willing to respond to local cancer care needs.

This can come in the form of personalized medicine directed by multidisciplinary care teams that focus on specific types of cancer, state-of-the-art medical technology, facilities that bring clinical experts and services together, driving collaboration, academic partnerships, and advanced treatment techniques and protocols.

Most recently, we’ve seen firsthand how partnerships have helped us respond quickly to keep patients and team members safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many plans to proactively plan began at Mary Bird Perkins – Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center, our largest location where hundreds of patients receive care each day. This team worked together to ensure cancer patients have access to the best possible medical care in the Gulf South and can feel confident in knowing they are safe at all facilities throughout the Mary Bird network. These include the Breast & GYN Cancer Pavilion at Woman’s Hospital, LSU Health North Baton Rouge Clinic, Cancer Services, Lane Cancer Center, St. Tammany Cancer Center, Mary Bird Perkins TGMC Cancer Center, as well as our locations in Gonzales, Hammond and Natchez.

Here are a few additional ways our partnerships are making a difference.

The Complexities of Cancer Care

Cancer care is evolving at a rapid pace and becoming more and more complex.

Survivorship rates are higher, but to get there, we’ve evolved continuously to ensure the newest therapies are available for patients. Whenever a patient arrives at Mary Bird Perkins, our specialists have the tools and capabilities they need to treat each patient’s unique condition. Through our network, we have many medical and support resources available.

Our partnerships have also worked together to increase survivorship across the region through clinical research. We’ve done this by partnering with Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans and Shreveport, primarily focusing on expanding access to clinical trials to underserved individuals. Through the Gulf South Minority/Underserved NCI Community Oncology Research Program, a collaborative effort with LSU Health Sciences Center and others, we are significantly increasing participation among underrepresented groups. We also partner with LSU Baton Rouge for a renowned medical physics program that addresses education, research and treatment.

Since 1980, the Center has collaborated with LSU to operate a nationally-recognized graduate education program in medical physics. The program is the only one of its kind in Louisiana and only one of 54 accredited programs in the nation. In 2009, the Center established an accredited medical physics residency training program that has grown to become the largest in the nation, thanks to talented educators, medical physicists and donors. The educational programs – and institutional partnerships that have been forged therein – have created an academic environment that is truly unique in the community setting and carries tremendous benefits to our patients and an academic base for those entering the profession.

The Power of Community Relationships

One of our longest partnerships is with Terrebonne General Medical Center, located in Houma. Mary Bird Perkins TGMC Cancer Center was our first formal cooperative endeavor to provide patients in Louisiana’s Bayou Region with local access to comprehensive cancer care. It is the perfect marriage of our values with a great community healthcare partner, bringing together team members from Mary Bird Perkins, Terrebonne General Medical Center and the private medical community to provide patients with high-quality care and resources.

Partnerships such as the one in Houma also allow the team to better provide tailored resources to patients and their families. Healthcare is not something confined to the four walls of a building. That’s why we work with community organizations to provide resources to support patients and their families emotionally and financially. Access to these programs is particularly vital in Louisiana and Mississippi, where many people are uninsured or underinsured. These community organizations help lessen the burden of cancer on patients, ensuring they can focus on what’s needed most: fighting cancer. For instance, in Baton Rouge, Cancer Services provides critical support services that support the medical care we provide through durable medical equipment, nutritional supplements, counseling services, children’s programming and more.

Strengthening the Philanthropic Mission

Mary Bird Perkins began as a simple dream of our founders. They were private citizens who wanted to create something that had not existed. They wanted nothing in return — all they desired was to build something that could serve their community.

We continue to appreciate the generous community philanthropic support that advances our mission. And every year since our founding in 1968, MBPCC has grown and strengthened in every way, thanks to individuals, grantors, corporations and many others. The trust our supporters place in us to make wise investments with their philanthropic dollars is never taken for granted. We do everything within our power to maintain this integrity.

One of my favorite examples of the power of philanthropy is our community-based outreach program. Since 2002, we have offered mobile cancer prevention, education and early detection. Two mobile medical clinics, affectionately known as Early Bird 1 and 2, currently perform over 200 screenings per year in 18 Louisiana parishes, free of cost. Our outreach program has screened nearly 100,000 people for cancer, and it all began as a partnership with like-minded philanthropic partners who trusted us to do something about the countless lives that were being unnecessarily lost due to lack of access to care and late-stage diagnosis. The program provides educational resources about diet and exercise, and most importantly, it creates an opportunity to detect cancer earlier, increasing the odds of survivorship.

There’s so much more that we must accomplish to improve cancer outcomes in Louisiana and Mississippi. As we approach Mary Bird’s 50th anniversary in 2021, we’ll continue carrying out our mission to ensure patients are getting the best cancer care possible — whether you’re in Baton Rouge, Gonzales, Houma, Hammond, Zachary, Natchez or Covington or any other place throughout this beautiful region we call home.