With cancer care growing beyond hospital walls and more cancer patients surviving than ever before, health systems in the U.S. are doubling down on their oncology infrastructure commitments.
“Cancer care can no longer be designed around treatment alone. We must intentionally redesign oncology as a continuum of care, where survivorship is not an afterthought but a core clinical strategy,” Robert Stone, CEO at Duarte, Calif.-based City of Hope, told Becker’s.
As breakthroughs in precision diagnostics and cellular therapies accelerate at a rapid pace, leaders are tasked with balancing lifesaving but expensive cancer care investments with other system priorities.
“Hospital and health system leaders often underestimate the complexity of patient selection, treatment timing and site-of-care decisions,” Armin Ghobadi, MD, bone marrow transplant specialist and medical oncologist at St. Louis-based Siteman Cancer Center, told Becker’s. “Ultimately, successful immunotherapy programs depend on tight alignment between clinical expertise, operational authority and sustainable financial models — recognizing immunotherapy as an enduring service line rather than a one-time therapeutic event.”
Here is how 16 health systems plan to spend more than $4 billion in cancer care service expansions to expand capacity, decentralize access and sustain the next generation of oncology care:
Editor’s note: This list is not exhaustive. Read about $2 billion in previously reported cancer infrastructure investments here.
- Portland-based Oregon Health & Science University will open a $650 million cancer center in April. The Vista Pavilion will house 128 inpatient beds dedicated to treating cancer through the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. In August, the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University received a $2 billion gift from Phil and Penny Knight to establish a new cancer care delivery model.
- The Medical University of South Carolina board of trustees advanced plans for a $1.1 billion cancer hospital in Charleston aimed at centralizing inpatient and outpatient oncology services.
MUSC said the estimated cost of the new cancer hospital is $1.115 billion, including approximately $885 million for construction and $230 million for equipment and furnishings.
- In April, Bend, Ore.-based St. Charles Health System will open a cancer center in Redmond, Ore., that can serve up to 300 patients per day.
The facility will be nine times larger than the system’s current cancer care facilities in Redmond and cost $65 million to build.
- Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital — part of Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham — received $35 million from Irving Oil to fund two cancer-focused facilities within the Phillip and Susan Ragon Building, currently under construction.
The funds will establish the Irving Oil Limited Center for Urgent Cancer Care in Honor of Arthur L. Irving and the Irving Oil Limited Healing Garden in Honor of Arthur L. Irving.
The urgent care will be housed in the Ragon Building’s Herb Chambers Tower, which is expected to open in 2027. The healing garden will be located in the Ragon Building’s New Balance Foundation Tower, expected to open in 2030.
- Boston-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute received the largest single gift in the institute’s history from the Josh and Anita Bekenstein and the Jonathan and Jeannie Lavine families. The gift will support the cancer institute’s future inpatient hospital, which will be named in honor of the families.
Construction on the new hospital is expected to begin in mid-2026. The $1.68 billion, 300-bed cancer hospital will operate as a joint venture between Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians.
- Kansas City-based University of Kansas received $36 million in federal funding to support research facilities within the University of Kansas Cancer Center, currently under construction. The university began construction of the cancer center in May after receiving a $100 million gift from the Sunderland Foundation.
- Wenatchee, Wash.-based Confluence Health will open a nearly $60 million cancer center at its Central Campus in 2028. The new facility will increase exam rooms by 38%, medical infusion chairs by 76% and double radiation capacity with the addition of a second linear accelerator vault.
- Hartford HealthCare’s St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, Conn., will leverage a $15 million gift — one of the largest in Hartford HealthCare’s history — from the estate of Neil Mellen to expand and modernize its inpatient oncology unit.
- Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai will establish the Cedars-Sinai Cayton BRCA Center after receiving a $30 million gift from the Cayton Goldrich Family Foundation.
The new center will focus on research, diagnosis and treatment of cancers linked to mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, as well as offer genetic testing, specialized screenings, risk-reducing procedures and reproductive medicine services.
- Smilow Cancer Hospital at Greenwich in Connecticut will use funding from a $25 million gift to renovate and expand the cancer care facilities within the hospital’s Olive and Thomas J. Watson Pavilion, and the Sherman and Gloria H. Cohen Pavilion.
- Worcester, Mass.-based UMass Memorial Health received approval from state regulators to build a $54 million cancer care facility that will offer proton therapy. Officials with UMass Memorial Health said they anticipate patients to begin receiving treatment at the facility in February 2028.
- Washington, D.C.-based Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center at Sibley Memorial Hospital will establish a Pediatric Radiation Oncology Research Center through $40 million in philanthropic funding. The center will operate out of Johns Hopkins’ existing proton therapy center at Sibley Memorial Hospital.
The new center will collaborate with institutions including Boston-based Mass General Brigham for Children, Baltimore-based Kennedy Krieger Institute, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.-based Children’s National Hospital.
- Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine and Penn Medicine Princeton (N.J.) Health broke ground on a $401 million cancer center in October.
The Penn Medicine Princeton Cancer Center is expected to open in May 2028 and will house more than 40 exam rooms, 30 infusion chairs, two linear accelerators for radiation therapy and a breast imaging center.
- Allentown, Pa.-based Lehigh Valley Health Network, part of Philadelphia-Jefferson Health, opened the Peter and Odete Kelly Center for Personalized Cancer Immunotherapy at the Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, also in Allentown.
The center was established through a $12 million gift from Peter and Odete Kelly.
- New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health opened a $14 million outpatient facility dedicated to breast and gynecologic cancers.
The center houses 26 exam rooms, 10 consultation rooms, two procedure rooms and an on-site laboratory. Support services such as infusion therapy, radiation medicine, plastic surgery, genetic counseling, genomic testing, imaging and access to clinical trials are located in the same building.
- Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health will build the Jean and E. Floyd Kvamme Advanced Cancer Center after receiving a $30 million gift. Expected to open in 2030, is part of a larger $50 million effort to “revolutionize cancer care and research” for Sutter Health’s community.
Sutter Health also began construction on the Advanced Cancer Center and Care Complex in Modesto, Calif. Estimated to cost $380 million and open in 2029, the center will offer clinic visits, screening, infusion and radiation therapy, imaging, lab and pharmacy services, as well as an ambulatory surgery center and expanded patient access to clinical trials.
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