Romeoville cancer care center provides ‘one-stop’ oncology care.

The Cancer Care Center at the Ascension Illinois Health Center — Romeoville is an outpatient multidisciplinary oncology center that brings “comprehensive, one-stop oncology” care to cancer patients, according to Chris Shride, president of Ascension Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet.

The Romeoville cancer care center, located at 500 W. Weber Road, served its first patient July 11 and held a community celebration on July 17.

The facility is also an extension of the Ascension Illinois — Cancer Care Joliet, a department of Ascension Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Chris Shride, president of Ascension Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet.

This means the Romeoville facility provides most of the cancer care services available at St. Joe’s, Shride said.

The only aspect that’s not currently here is a linear accelerator,” Shride said. “That’s at St. Joe’s.”

Linear accelerators provide the optimal amount of radiation in the precise location to cancer patients.

Features of the Romeoville cancer care center include 12 exam rooms, women’s imaging services, full laboratory service, a special procedure area, a large infusion center with 21 private bays, a “beautiful community infusion room, and a full oncology pharmacy “like you’d see in any hospital but in an outpatient setting,” Shride said.

The 8,000-square-feet facility was formerly an imaging center that wasn’t “needfully used,” Shride said.

So not only did Ascension Illinois already have the existing space, the building’s location was convenient and accessible for cancer patients who live and work in the Romeoville area, making it easy for them to “come and go,” Shride said.

The imaging center also had offices for primary care physicians — which are still there — and physical therapy, Shride said.

Shride said the fully renovated facility is “a beautiful building, esthetically pleasing, for people going through some of the hardest times in their lives,” which fulfills the mission of Ascension Health of providing holistic care to its patients.

So the facility is meant to be more than high-high end cancer care but also a place where patients will experience “comfort and peace,” especially since many will spend frequent time there, Shride said.

“From an investment point of view, this is something we built, not only for today but for many years to come,” Shride said.

For more information, visit healthcare.ascension.org.