2000s Realizing a Vision for Team-Based Care

Opposite page: The Coleman Foundation’s Rosa Berardi, Mike Hennessy; Rush University’s Howard Kaufman, then-director of the Rush University Cancer Center, Larry Goodman, MD, then-CEO of Rush University Medical Center and President of Rush University, and Diane McKeever, senior vice president of Philanthropy.

In 2005 The Coleman Foundation made the largest commitment in its history: a $5 million gift to establish the Coleman Foundation Comprehensive Cancer Clinics at Rush. With support for the design, construction and state-ofthe-art technology of the Outpatient Cancer Center, it transformed the culture of cancer care at Rush.

At the time, the concept of patient-focused design was revolutionary. Health care was changing: Cancer treatments were no longer a one-size-fits-all regimen, but the existing footprint of the Medical Center’s facilities distributed medical oncologists, surgeons, radiation oncologists and clinical trial enrollment across multiple buildings and floors. Co-locating nearly all services in a single suite, the comprehensive clinic model united multidisciplinary teams of specialists to build care plans unique to each patient and their cancer. Working with and near each other, care team members built knowledge and trust, continually communicating from diagnosis to remission.

In January 2011 Mike Hennessy, Rosa Berardi and the rest of the board and staff of The Coleman Foundation joined Rush to celebrate the opening of the Outpatient Cancer Center. In the decade since, new Coleman Foundation Comprehensive Clinics have included those established for bone marrow transplant, leukemia and lymphoma. These clinics encompass new supportive oncology services and helped to establish Rush University Cancer Center as one of U.S. News & World Report’s top 50 cancer programs in the nation in 2020.

in a March 30, 2007, press release announcing The Coleman Foundation’s gift to establish comprehensive clinics at Rush

Opposite page top left to right: Rush hematologist Parameswaran Venugopal, MD; Mike Hennessy; Stephanie Gregory, MD, Rush hematologist; Philip Bonomi, MD, a Rush lung cancer specialist.

Opposite page bottom: Celalettin Ustun, MD, and colleagues meet with transplant patient.