Cancer patients in Central Pennsylvania and the commonwealth at large have a new ally in the Hershey Medical Center, as the Penn State Board of Trustees officially authorized the construction of the Cancer Institute at its meeting last Friday.

"The new cancer institute will serve thousands of cancer patients, allowing them to get the advanced cancer care close to home," Harold Paz, dean of the College of Medicine, said. "It will also provide a home to expanded cancer research that will lead to new treatments, enhanced diagnoses and increased understanding of the many forms of this devastating disease."

The board authorized a 10 percent increase to the project's total operating budget of $130 million, which Gary Schultz, senior vice president for finance and business, said was necessary to accommodate recent design changes, which include refinements to the interior layout and possible expansion opportunities.

Paz said the Cancer Institute would prove vital in the medical center's ongoing mission to provide quality care to area residents, who currently have to travel out of the central Pennsylvania region for certain treatments.

"We are in the process of developing a regional health system to serve all of Pennsylvania," Paz said. "I believe there is nothing worse than a family with a sick child to have to get in a car and travel long distances for that child to get care."

The 175,000-square-foot building will feature three floors of patient care and two of research space, with a nearby "healing garden" providing a soothing natural environment for recovering residents. Total research space would include 46 open lab benches, as well as additional shared lab space.

Paz addressed the declining number of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants to the medical center, which dropped $3.5 million to $95.3 million in 2006. Projects like the Cancer Institute are expected to provide new avenues for grants.

"We've seen the first declines in NIH funding in a long time," he said. "We need to rethink how we approach research funding." Paz set a goal of $100 million in NIH grants for 2007.

Sorely-needed expansions to the emergency department were also proposed in the plan -- emergency room visits to the Medical Center have gone up 30 percent from 2001 to almost 50,000 a year.

Additional improvements included the construction of a direct route to the emergency room from a nearby highway, a new hospital lobby and a new helipad.

The Cancer Institute's design, drafted by Payette Associates and Array Healthcare Facilities Solutions, left room for a connection to the proposed Children's Hospital, for which a groundbreaking date has yet to be determined. Highmark has pledged $20 million to the construction of the Children's Hospital, part of its new partnership with Penn State.

"When completed some years from now, the Children's Hospital will enhance the availability and quality of specialized medical care for children throughout Pennsylvania," Penn State President Graham Spanier said in his opening remarks.

The Hershey Medical Center recently completed an $8.4 million expansion to the University Fitness Center, expanding the workout facilities and adding a conference room. A $24 million parking garage on the campus is still under construction.