City of Hope expands with addition of Pacific Shores Medical Group
Pacific Shores Medical Group, one of the nation’s largest hematology/oncology medical groups and infusion programs, has joined City of Hope.
The move — which increases City of Hope’s cancer care network to more than 35 sites in five counties — will provide patients in Southern California with increased access to cutting-edge cancer care, clinical trials, and cancer prevention and education resources, according to representatives of both entities.
“‘Hope’ is growing,” Edward S. Kim, MD, MBA, physician-in-chief for City of Hope Orange County, vice physician-in-chief for City of Hope National Medical Center and a HemOnc Today Editorial Board member, told Healio. “We are incredibly passionate about delivering world-class care to areas that are underserved or maybe don’t have the same opportunities. Having Pacific Shores Medical Group join our family and expanding into these regions helps accelerate our mission to deliver precision medicine, precision prevention and clinical trials.
“This has been a central focus of Pacific Shores and that is unique for community practices,” Kim said.
Pacific Shores Medical Group — established in 1986 in Long Beach, California — records more than 80,000 patient visits per year at its seven locations across Los Angeles and Orange counties.
The group includes 14 physicians, 11 nurse practitioners and physician assistants, and more than 200 staff members.
“We are a community-based practice with a significant academic bent in the sense we have been engaged in teaching, kept in close contact with colleagues at university centers and NCI, and worked closely with the biotechnology industry,” N. Simon Tchekmedyian, MD, the group’s founder and CEO, told Healio. “Since our inception, we have made clinical trials and research a priority.”
Many patients served by Pacific Shores live within 15 minutes of their providers but would have to travel up to 90 minutes to receive care at City of Hope.
“City of Hope is a great organization with a lot of talent, and I feel very comfortable with their leadership because we share the same vision and values,” Tchekmedyian said. “There will be tremendous synergy.
“However, the biggest beneficiaries will be patients,” Tchekmedyian added. “They will have access through our offices — very close to home — to the much-enhanced expertise and depth of services that City of Hope offers. As our work together grows and many of the elements of our joint vision come to fruition, it will be great to be able to say our region is one of the best oncology centers in the world.”
Last year, City of Hope outlined plans to invest $1 billion to expand cancer care services into Orange County.
The Lennar Foundation Cancer Center at City of Hope Orange County, under construction on an 11-acre site within Five Point’s Great Park in Irvine, is one component. It will open in 2022.
A hospital dedicated to treating and curing people with cancer — the only one of its type in Orange County — will open in Irvine in 2025. Plans also call for a network of several clinical sites, the first of which opened in 2020 in Newport Beach.
Pacific Shores Medical Group joining City of Hope will complement the expansion effort, Kim said.
“We’re going to change things, and this is all for the good of patients,” Kim said. “This is the next step in our push to expand access to world-class care and inclusive research. If we can provide more opportunities and increase the level and depth of services we deliver to patients in these communities, that’s what success will look like.”