By Sara McCloskey

As we eagerly await the New Year, filled with exciting changes both big and small in our lives, it’s important to take a moment and reflect on all we have accomplished in the past 12 months.

With patient-centered care at the heart of every decision we make, we spent 2023 expanding options for our youngest patients and providing more opportunities for home-based care. VCU Health team members also broke ground with innovative technology which is improving patient recovery outcomes. And one of our centers reached an important designation, showing how community-focused research can advance treatment and care across the commonwealth and beyond.

Massey leaders and elected officials celebrate the cancer center's NCI comprehensive designation in June 2023. (VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center)

Unwavering dedication to cancer research and care

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the nation’s principal authority on cancer research and training, awarded our cancer center a “Comprehensive” designation. Now called VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, this highest recognition from the NCI places Massey among an elite group of cancer centers influencing a new standard of care through research, education and community engagement.

With Massey’s new comprehensive status, those living in its service area are promised even greater access to life-saving cancer screenings, educational resources and clinical trials offering leading-edge treatments.

Find out how we’re among the top cancer centers in the country.

Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU patient, Cheyenne Snell, and team members celebrate a successful move-in day. (Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU)

A whole city block devoted to treating children and families

Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU’s Children’s Tower officially opened in late April. When combined with the outpatient Children’s Pavilion, the tower is about 1 million square feet, and includes inpatient, emergency and Level I pediatric trauma care.

The tower’s 72 private rooms are among the most spacious pediatric hospital rooms in the country. There are also patient and family amenities that are all designed to make the hospital feel more like home.

Check out Richmond’s new home for pediatric inpatient, emergency and trauma care.

David Bruno, M.D.; interim chair of VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center, Marlon Levy, M.D.; interim CEO of VCU Health, and Vinay Kumaran, M.D.; living liver donor surgical director, watch the robotic surgery on screen. (VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center)

Transplant surgeons lead the way with robotic innovations

VCU Health Hume-Lee Transplant Center successfully performed its first robotic liver procurement procedure this year, becoming the third U.S. center to successfully perform this innovative surgery and the only one on the East Coast actively offering robotic hepatectomies.

The procedure is less invasive, allowing donors to recover quicker with less pain and scarring, meaning they can more quickly return to normal activities while the remaining portion of their liver regenerates. Hume-Lee team members expect the success of this procedure will also expand the pool of eligible living donors, as the number of people registered and waiting for a liver nears 11,000.

Meet one of the first living liver donors to undergo a fully robotic surgery.

VCU Health's Hospital at Home program allows patients to be treated for certain medical conditions at home instead of at the hospital. (VCU Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

Advancing care from the comfort of home

In 2023, VCU Health became the first health care system in central Virginia to launch a program that allows patients to receive acute, hospital-level care from home. Hospital at Home gives patients the option to have short-term treatment or recovery care at their home instead of staying at the hospital. Physicians and trained staff are on hand, through remote and in-person visits, to provide support to patients and family members assisting with their care.

Studies have shown a wide variety of benefits for patients of these types of programs, such as reduced costs and fewer readmissions to the hospital, among others.

See how Hospital at Home is meeting the needs of patients.

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