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VCU Health’s new Adult Outpatient Pavilion opened on the MCV Campus on December 6, and the facility brings patient care to new heights both literally and figuratively.

At 17 stories, the project is VCU Health’s tallest building to date, and it is poised to transform the way outpatient care is provided. Fueling that innovation are a pair of matching challenge grants through two community foundations. The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation recently awarded a matching grant challenge of $500,000, and The Cabell Foundation announced a $750,000 challenge grant in support of VCU Massey Cancer Center’s presence in the Adult Outpatient Pavilion.

In this new setting, comfort, convenience and aesthetics are at the center of the patient experience, providing a welcoming and healing environment.

“We hope these grants will give Massey an opportunity to raise both awareness and community support from the residents of Central Virginia whose family members will benefit from the innovations in care,” said Amy P. Nisenson, executive director of The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation. “We want the community to know that everybody can have a part and make a difference.”

Contributions will be matched dollar for dollar through these grants when individuals make a gift to support the oncology outpatient clinics, and the matching funds can be used toward naming opportunities. As both challenges are met, cancer care is poised to benefit from a combined $2.5 million in support. Massey has until May 2022 to complete the matching grant from The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation and until December 2022 to complete The Cabell Foundation challenge. 

“We believe all patients deserve access to high-quality health care,” said Jill McCormick, executive director of The Cabell Foundation. “That’s why we’re proud to partner with VCU Health to ensure the Adult Outpatient Pavilion can transform outpatient care on the MCV Campus and serve as a national model.”

Both foundations hope their gifts will ignite community support for Massey as it advocates for and educates the community about its strategic priorities. The cancer center opens its new world-class care facility as it hopes to earn Comprehensive status, the top ranking granted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Massey is one of 71 NCI-designated Cancer Centers in the country, which places it in the top 4%. Since 1975, it has been continuously designated. The new Adult Outpatient Pavilion will better support collaboration among providers and higher efficiencies in care for patients.

“These grants will help spur what we need to do, and we’re grateful for the support they will inspire,” said Robert A. Winn, M.D., director and Lipman Chair in Oncology at Massey and senior associate dean for cancer innovation at the VCU School of Medicine.

About the Building

The Adult Outpatient Pavilion is located at the corner of North 10th and East Leigh streets on the grounds of the former Virginia Treatment Center for Children. The 17-story, 615,000-square-foot building features five floors dedicated to outpatient oncology care and includes 1,000 parking spaces.

The entire building is an “intersection of science, health care delivery and community all coming together,” Winn said. “In this new facility, we commit to bringing great medicine as well as good health to everyone in the state and beyond.”

Massey patients will find a wide array of specialties and features, including floor-to-ceiling windows on every floor of the building, easier access and wayfinding, brand-new facilities for infusion, updated records and scheduling technologies, streamlined check-in, spaces designed for multidisciplinary collaboration and new first-in-the-region radiation treatments, among others.

“This building is really designed and engineered and crafted floor by floor, corner by corner, bringing everything to the patient,” said Art Kellermann, M.D., M.P.H., senior vice president for VCU Health Sciences and CEO of VCU Health System.

A top priority included making sure patients can easily navigate the building quickly from one service to another. The facility includes quiet spaces to rest and recharge, as well as a café.

“What we’ve come up with is a way to take care of patients that will become a model for the rest of the nation,” said Dr. Michael Rao, president of VCU and VCU Health System.

For more information about the new VCU Massey Cancer Center at the Adult Outpatient Pavilion and naming opportunities, please visit: https://www.masseycancercenter.org/aop or contact Patti Jackson, Massey major gift officer, at 804.350.2639 or jacksonp2@vcu.edu.

Editor’s note: this story is re-purposed from the cover story in the fall 2021 issue of the MCV Foundation’s “Chronicle of Giving.”

Written by: Paul Brockwell Jr.