Special Supplement to The Glendale Star and Peoria Times
HEALTH
WELLNESS Your Local Guide to Better Living
Summer 2022
INSIDE
This Issue
BEATITUDES .......... 4 Independent living campus is a move in the right direction
MORRIS HALL........ 8 Law firm helps explain an advance directive
BENEVILLA BENEFITNESS ...... 11 Adaptive gym opens to the public
Ironwood expanding to Goodyear next summer BY LAURA LATZKO
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ronwood Cancer and Research Centers provides academic care but in a community setting at 15 Valley locations. Soon, it will expand to Goodyear after it breaks ground on Tuesday, Sept. 20, at 159th Avenue and McDowell Road. It will open next summer as a 28,000-square-foot center. When it’s finished, it will be 45,000 square feet. Ironwood Executive Director Brian Washburn said the new building will have a modern aesthetic and a patient-centered layout. “It will be designed with a smooth patient-flow process, so that depending on the purpose of the visit, the modality, the specialty, it will make for an easy flow for the patient through the various departments,” Washburn said. Patient demand called for the expansion of the company, which also includes West Valley locations in Avondale, Glendale and Sun City. “With all of the growth in the West Valley and all of the growth in our practice, we decided it was time to expand and develop that new site,” Washburn said. “Some of our patients are having to drive past the area to get to us. … We don’t want patients to have to wait for their care or have any undue hardships to get to see one of our providers.” Dr. Joseph Nabong, chief of strategy and development and a board-certified oncologist for Ironwood, said the need traces back to 2015. He’s in the Avondale office
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Ironwood Executive Director Brian Washburn said the expansion “will be designed with a smooth patient-flow process” to make it easy for the patient to move through various departments. (Ironwood/Submitted)
but will move to Goodyear once it is completed. “The office is so busy with the need around the area with these hospitals,” Nabong said. “We provide care not only in the office but in the hospitals themselves. … The need is there, and the growth is there, and we know for a fact that this area is growing tremendously compared to any other area in Arizona.” Ironwood was founded in 1993 by Dr. Parvinderjit Khanuja with one location and has grown over the years through mergers with other patient-focused cancer and oncology centers. Washburn said independent practices
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like Ironwood are increasingly rare, as cancer centers around the country are being purchased by private equities and hospitals. “It’s getting harder and harder to run a practice, especially an oncology practice, which can be very costly. This is a very strong, growing, developing practice,” Washburn said. “For the community to have something like this that isn’t tied to a larger entity, where the physicians get to make decisions, that is so unique. The physicians get to make the decisions for the direction of
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