The Queen's Medical Center
The Queen's Cancer Center
Honolulu, Hawaii
1301 Punchbowl Street
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
www.queens.org
Background
The Queen's Hospital, now called The Queen's Medical Center (QMC), founded in 1859 by King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma when Hawai`i was still a kingdom. At that time, the Hawaiian race had been decimated from some 300,000 in 1778 to about 71,000 in 1853 by the influx of diseases brought to the islands from foreign visitors. Both the King and Queen worked tirelessly to establish a hospital, personally soliciting the necessary funds from the legislature, businesses and individuals.
Through six generations, The Queen's Medical Center has become a part of the cultural fabric of the State of Hawai`i and a major provider of health care. Located in downtown Honolulu, The Queen’s Medical Center today is the largest private, nonprofit, acute care medical facility in Hawai‘i and the leading medical referral center of the Pacific Basin.
- Comprehensive range of primary and specialized care services
- Licensed to operate 505 acute-care beds and 28 subacute beds
- Over 3,700 employees and more than 1,200 physicians on staff.
The Queen’s Cancer Center was launched on October 26, 2007 to provide patients with a comprehensive, multidisciplinary cancer treatment and research center. In 2008, the Queen’s Cancer Center, through their affiliated physicians, diagnosed and/or treated 2,293 new cancer cases and sees 2,653 inpatients and 26,303 outpatient visits.
Patient Service Area
Each year approximately 5,000 residents of Hawai`i are diagnosed with cancer. Almost 46% are treated at The Queen’s Medical Center. These patients come to Queen’s from across the State of Hawai`i, which consist of eight (8) main islands (Nihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui, Lanai, Kahoolawe and Hawai`i), all but one of which is inhabited. Hawai`i itself extends over a distance of almost 2,000 miles. In 2008, 82.6% of the patients diagnosed with cancer at Queen’s were residents of the island of O`ahu, where Queen’s is located. The remaining 16.5% were patients from the neighboring islands and elsewhere in the Pacific Basin. Another 1% of patients traveled from the continental US or a foreign country.
Hawai`i is home to many ethnic groups. In 2005 thE state’s ethnic distribution was estimated at 33% Caucasian, 25% Japanese, 14% Native Hawaiian, 12% Filipino, 7% Chinese, 2% Korean, 2% Samoan, 1% other Pacific Islander, 1% African-American and other. Although Hawai`i has the longest life expectancy in the US, not all ethnic groups live equally long lives. Since 1950, Japanese and Chinese residents have the longest life expectancy, while Native Hawaiians experienced the shortest. Compared to other ethnic groups in Hawaii, Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rates; are more likely to smoke, to be overweight, to participate less frequently in cancer screenings; to report themselves in poor health; and to report that they are unable to see a doctor due to cost.
Hawaiian also have the lowest median household income and rates of home ownership and post-secondary education, as well as the highest rates of participation in temporary assistance to needy families. Other disparate groups in terms of cancer include Filipinos and other Pacific Islander groups [e.g., Samoans and Micronesians (e.g., Marshallese and Chuukese)].
Key Disparities Initiatives
Queen’s provides and supports a number of cancer-specific community outreach programs that include, or are specifically targeted to, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and Filipinos. All three of these groups are shown to be underserved and under-screened, and to less satisfactory cancer care outcomes than Japanese, Chinese, and Caucasian residents in the state.