SIDNEY — The Board of Trustees of Wilson Health has approved plans to move toward the establishment of a cancer treatment center in Sidney.

When the healthcare organization purchased land along Vandemark Road in September 2015, it initiated a feasibility study by Oncology Solutions to determine whether there is a need here for such a facility. The results of the study were presented to the board two weeks ago.

At the same time, Wilson Health received the results of a community health needs assessment, which is done every three years. This year, the assessment was region-wide and completed in partnership with Premier Health and Kettering Health Network.

The two studies provided statistics that informed the board’s decision:

• The mortality rate for lung, breast and colon cancers in Shelby County far outpaces national mortality rates. For lung cancer, the county’s mortality rate is 14 percent higher; for breast cancer, 27 percent higher; and for colon cancer, a whopping 61 percent higher.

• In Shelby County, there are more than 300 new cases of cancer every year.

• Two-thirds of cancer patients in Shelby County travel for more than 30 minutes to receive chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Wilson leaders asked themselves, “What can we do to impact that?”

“It has more of a personal meaning to me,” Wilson Health President/CEO Mark Dooley told the Sidney Daily News, Thursday. Dooley’s mother suffered from breast cancer. While she had to travel just 10 minutes to chemotherapy treatments, even a 10-minute ride home afterwards was difficult.

“And some local patients travel for as much as an hour and a half each way for treatment,” Dooley said.

With board approval, Wilson Health is evaluating and pursuing a potential partnership with The James, the Ohio State University’s comprehensive cancer center in Columbus.

“A potential partnership with The James would provide immediate access to world-class cancer care services, including patient access to a clinical trials network and total cancer care. The partnership would include the use of The James name and brand, as well as quality oversight of the cancer program and accreditation assistance,” Dooley said.

And official agreement and final terms have not been signed or even determined yet; however, Wilson Health hopes to finalize terms of a partnership agreement within six months.

“More than 60 percent of the participants surveyed in the public perception study conducted said they would be more likely to seek cancer care through Wilson Health if a partnership was established with the Ohio State University — The James Cancer Center,” Dooley said.

A local treatment center that would offer chemotherapy infusion and radiation therapy, neither of which are available at Wilson Hospital now; counseling and supportive care, medical oncology exams and educational programming.

“A misconception is that it will be a cancer hospital,” Dooley said. “This will be an outpatient facility.”

He noted that in talking with cancer survivors, current patients and their families, the conductors of the feasibility study heard three things over and over again that responders liked about the proposed center.

“1) The accessibility off the interstate, and 2) there’s a hotel right there if people don’t feel like they want to drive home. And we heard loud and clear from cancer survivors and patients, ‘We don’t want to go into a hospital. Emotionally, we don’t want to go through that’ for treatment,” Dooley said.

If Wilson’s proposed plans go through, the center in Sidney will not look like a hospital facility.

“Our plan would be to have cancer survivors and family members to help design the facility,” Dooley said.

“And the processes,” added Margo O’Leary, Wilson Health director of marketing and communications. “People don’t feel good. They just heard ‘cancer’ for the first time.” Survivors can provide valuable feedback about what should happen next.

Another plan is to have a Wilson employee serve as a “navigator” or coordinator to help patients who are recommended for more advanced treatment somewhere else.

“Family members don’t know where to start. We want to be a resource emotionally, mentally, physically, of course, and educationally,” O’Leary said.