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Overlake Medical Center broke ground Jan. 27 on its new, one-stop-shop for cancer care on the Eastside.

The $20 million Overlake Cancer Center will cater to patients and provide an array of treatment aspects in one location, according to the center’s Medical Director Kristi Harrington.

“We’re very fortunate here in the Pacific Northwest because we have basically unlimited access to world-class treatment and technology. But, in one very real way, treatment falls short and can be improved mightily. Right now, in basically every place in the local community, cancer treatment focuses on the diagnosis and the disease. A lot of times, things that matter really importantly to patients come in second place — things like coordination of care, convenience, being able to get their care in one facility,” she said.

Currently, people diagnosed with cancer are forced to go from diagnosis straight into finding specialists, traveling to different facilities and juggle everything that goes along with treatment, Harrington said. Overlake’s goal is to eliminate that stress, she added.

Helping break ground was cancer survivor and Issaquah resident Breeze Dahlberg, who was treated at Overlake in 2012.

“From day one, this team of cancer care providers took me by the hand — very literally — to kill my cancer and save my life… The fight for my life seemed too daunting to even comprehend, as it is for most cancer patients and their families,” she said.

The facility, which Overlake CEO J. Michael Marsh said was designed by cancer survivors, patients, doctors, nurses and a blue-ribbon advisory board, is slated to open in the second quarter of 2017.

“This is a hospital that was built for the community and by the community,” he said at the ceremony.

The groundbreaking also marked the launch of Overlake’s Project futureCARE, a $242 million venture that will expand their existing medical campus. It will include a new childbirth and mom and baby care center, two additional surgical suites, more laboratory space and larger patient rooms to accomodate patients’ families.

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