PEORIA, Ill. – A multi-facet expansion is being planned for Peoria’s OSF Cancer Institute in terms of the building and the people who work there.
On Thursday, OSF announced that a certificate of need was approved for the facility. The 29,000-square foot expansion will include more clinical spaces and conference rooms. It will have medical oncology, surgical oncology, and research areas.
Work on the expansion is expected to start next month, with planned completion in spring of 2027.
The expansion will also include an area for theranostics.
“It’s a combination of agents that have a common ability to find abnormal cells that are malignant, and then either use radiation materials to image them or treat them,” said Institute President Dr. James McGee.
The expansion also includes the hiring of two internationally renowned doctors into leadership positions.
Dr. Robert McWilliams will serve as the institute’s Deputy Director. He comes to Peoria from the Mayo Clinic, where he served as a professor and in numerous leadership roles. OSF says McWilliams’ career has focused on using genetic information for advanced care for patients.
As the institute, McWilliams’ role will be expanding the medical oncology program. His roles also include growing the workforce and helping streamline care.
“Our goal is to have disease-specific care teams, so ultimately to have surgeons and radiation oncologists and medical oncologists work together to care for a patient, so hopefully the patient’s not running around to many different places, and we’re actually bringing the care team to the patient,” McWilliams said.
One example McWilliams gave is a team that would be solely focused on color cancer.
The institute also announced that Dr. Jun Zhang who joined the institute this past fall as vice president of oncology research.
