There’s a new cancer center coming to CT. Here’s why and where

Hartford Courant – Friday, May 2, 2025
By Helen I. Bennett

As a CEO of a health care system, Jeffrey Flaks has worked to bring access to health care across the state of Connecticut.

And yet, when he recently toured the new Hartford HealthCare Fairfield Cancer Center, created as a Care Partner of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Flaks said about it, “it really is quite amazing.”

And that is after Hartford Healthcare system has already created a new 24/7 concierge provision of health care app, opened at least 500 locations in the state and had 879,889 primary care and 473,795 emergency department visits in 2023. It also reports 6,608 physicians and 6,286 nurses (all types) on staff across the health system.

Now, the new Hartford HealthCare Fairfield Cancer Center is a first in the nation “MSK care partner,” Flaks said, and it means bringing the MSK “clinical trials and cutting edge therapies to Connecticut.”

“We’re very excited,” Flaks said. “This will elevate cancer care in Fairfield County.”

The center is the first within the partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and indicates Hartford HealthCare has already worked to achieve the necessary level of concordance, Flaks said. Concordance is achieved through continuous quality assessments and means Hartford HealthCare meets Memorial Sloan Kettering standards and benchmarks, he said, something of which he said the health system is proud.

This has been shown with Hartford HealthCare submitting all of its data and all of its outcomes, and making changes where necessary, “to raise the level of care” for “all of the cancer patients we treat,” Flaks said. This started with the Fairfield County patients, and looks at quality, outcomes and safety, he said.

Flaks said the new 25,000-square-foot center at 4185 Black Rock Turnpike in Fairfield is a “tremendous opportunity” for patients in the Fairfield County area to get treatment without having to travel to the Upper East Side of New York City, will bring continuous education for Hartford HealthCare doctors, meaning “we’re getting better,” consultations with MSK experts, adaptive technology, and for anyone who needs to go to MSK, will bring a “seamless coordinated process.”

“It enables us to bring their capabilities here,” he said. “It truly raises the level of care in the community, truly state of the art… it brings into the region new therapies, new techniques.”

“This is part and parcel to our vision to what we are doing (with) cancer care,” Flaks said, noting comfort, convenience, compassion and “the highest level of exceptional technology and capabilities” it brings.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital President Shelly Anderson said the Care Partner relationship grew from a 10-year relationship with Hartford Healthcare. The goal, she said, is to bring “the best cancer care to more patients” in their communities, to make sure “more and more,” people are served.

It is a “deeper relationship,” and “and we want to continue to share that,” Anderson said. “Hartford HealthCare has grown a lot in the past years…across their entire system.”

“We only do cancer,” Anderson said, noting that includes many clinical trials and a “comprehensive multidisciplinary approach.”

Dr. Peter Yu, physician-in-chief at the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute, said of the decade long relationship, “we were aware that advances in cancer care were coming at a phenomenal rate, science, treatment evolving quickly,” but also that there was what he called a “gap” in getting that “knowledge transmitted as quickly as possible to communities where people live.”

With Hartford HealthCare part of the MSK Cancer Alliance, it built the relationship, Yu said.

“We continue to have this pressing need to bring these advances to patients… to transform care delivery” to the “level of quality” that MSK is at.

Yu said while the new building in Fairfield is a sign of the evolution, it is really the people who are in the building, the program, and “how we work together” that create the care pathways.

Importantly, Yu said, “it is really crucial for patients and their families to trust their health care providers. This care partnership allows the patient to have that degree of trust.”

Cancer was the second highest cause of death in Connecticut in 2022, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the latest statistics published online. The agency listed 6,658 deaths in Connecticut that year from cancer.

According to the Connecticut Breast Health Initiative, an estimated 268,600 American women were diagnosed with new cases of invasive breast cancer in 2023. That meant an estimated 3,490 new cases of breast cancer in Connecticut women in 2023 and that “female breast cancer is the leading cause of new cancers in the state,” according to the initiative.

“Excluding skin cancers, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women,” according to the initiative.

A state of Connecticut report on incidences of cancer diagnosis in the state, released in 2019, and the latest of such “special topics” reports on the Department of Public Health website, says that, from 2011 to 2015, 101,736 new cancers were diagnosed in Connecticut.

“The incidence rate of all invasive cancers was 508 per 100,000 persons in men, and 449 per 100,000 persons in women,” the report says.

The Connecticut Health Policy Project reports that while survival rates “vary substantially between types of cancer” from 2006 to 2019, “Connecticut cancer rates per capita dropped 11% and cancer deaths are down 24%.”

Flaks, commenting on the prevalence of cancer diagnoses in Connecticut, said the new center will “dramatically accelerate” bringing innovation to Connecticut, and Hartford HealthCare hopes eventually to bring it across all of the state.

An example of technology cited by Flaks included what he said is the first Varian Ethos Radiation Therapy System in Connecticut. He said it uses adaptive intelligence for treatments. That means customizing treatment and reducing side effects, among other benefits, he said.

Yu said the Varian system brings treatment plans revised in real time, and the precision down to millimeters (or smaller), while “each day the treatment plan is tailored for that patient.”

Yu also noted that for patients with cancer it is so important to be close to their families, neighbors and friends, and the new center brings care right to Connecticut.

“Our trademark for our colleagues… is to be the best at getting better,” Flaks said. “We want to continuously work every day to be better. … With cancer, this is an opportunity to make it better.”

A Hartford HealthCare spokesperson said the new center is expected to see more than 8,000 medical oncology visits and over 12,000 infusion visits annually. The health system employs about 70 people at the new site.

Flaks also noted that Hartford HealthCare also is rebuilding its St. Vincent’s Medical Center campus in Bridgeport, part of its investing in Fairfield County.

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