OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) -- Sutter Health and Stanford Medicine celebrated the completion of a new $400 million cancer center in Oakland, bringing expanded outpatient care to East Bay patients. The joint project centralizes comprehensive cancer treatment into a single facility. Located on Pill Hill a t Sutter's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center campus, the 167,000-square-foot, five-floor facility addresses a pressing health need in the region. According to Sutter Health, cancer remains the leading cause of death in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Laura Van Pelt, nursing director for hospital outpatient floors at Sutter Health, highlighted the impact the new location will have on local families. “50-% of our patients in the East Bay are crossing a bridge to get to care,” Van Pelt said. “ Multiple fan fights caught on video during 49ers-Raiders game If we can take care of patients right here, how much better would that be for them and their treatment.” Van Pelt also shared a personal connection to the center's mission. “I lost my mother to breast cancer and so for me, everything that I see in this building would have made her journey easier,” she said. The comprehensive center offers a wide range of medical services on-site, including radiation oncology, infusion, imaging, ambulatory surgery, breast health and pharmacies, alongside validated parking. The layout features a specialized complex care center designed as an urgent care unit for same-day patient needs. “This area is going to be our complex care center, which is an urgent care -- essentially -- same-day care -- for our patients only,” Van Pelt said. Among the facility's diagnostic technology is a CT SIM machine used during early treatment planning. “Some of the things that we have to do before we begin treatment is we need to do a simulation. This is the CT SIM,” Van Pelt said. “What we use this for is so that we can take a picture of the patient's anatomy before we start giving the treatment and use it as our baseline for where the treatment should be delivered.” The interior design emphasizes healing environments with high windows, natural lighting and custom artwork created specifically for the facility. “This art is phenomenal. This is actually art done on corrugated cardboard, which is amazing,” Van Pelt said. “All of the artists are local to the Bay Area. Most of them are in Oakland.” The center is scheduled to welcome its first patients on Dec. 1. All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by KRON4. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat information into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by KRON4 staff before being published. ...read more read less