UW Medicine Relationship

The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) name and brand are being retired and replaced with a new Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center brand that includes a new logo and new colors. The new brand was launched in October 2022 to send a clear signal to employees, providers, donors, partners and patients that something fundamental has changed. 

The brand rollout includes updates to signs, websites, marketing collateral and patient materials to remove the SCCA name and logo, and replace them with the updated Fred Hutch name and logo.

In the coming months you’ll see this new brand come to life on our campus and in our clinics through updated signs and content – and through campaigns that inform and engage audiences in our mission. The rollout is expected to be completed in the summer of 2023. 

The new structure will not make changes to patients’ doctors or care teams. Patients will continue to receive the superior care that they have come to expect from us. Through the restructure we expect to improve the patient experience and bring even more innovation to patients and their families.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center now serves as the cancer program for UW Medicine, including oversight of the clinically-integrated oncology program and the cancer services delivered at UW Medical Center-Montlake in Seattle. Members of UW Physicians, a provider practice group whose members are UW School of Medicine faculty, provide cancer care at Fred Hutch as well as UW Medicine. The relationship with UW Medicine allows for enhanced care coordination with one of the world’s leading integrated health systems. Fred Hutch also raises philanthropic funding on behalf of both organizations for adult oncology programs.

The merger to form a clinically integrated adult cancer program offers greater organizational alignment and agility. The restructuring of the relationship with UW Medicine has been designed to improve our patients’ experience, further reduce the time from research to the delivery of breakthrough treatments, improve the structures that shape our planning and communication to patients, partners and employees and collectively inspire donors to support our mission. Creating Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and moving forward under this new clinically integrated structure further strengthens the organizations’ contributions to Washington State in health care delivery, economic growth and a robust life sciences industry.  

Under the new structure, the vaccine and infectious diseases, basic and human biology, computational science and public health research conducted at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will continue as part of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and UW-based research will remain at UW. The partnership between UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s will continue, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and Seattle Children’s Research Institute will also work together to advance pediatric oncology research.

On April 1, 2022, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance finalized their merger and the restructuring of the longtime relationship with UW Medicine to complete the formation of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. 

Dr. Thomas J. Lynch Jr. is the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center president and director and a member of the UW Medicine senior management team.

The organizations, along with Seattle Children's, first announced plans to explore restructuring their longtime relationship in July 2021. 

The creation of a single, independent, nonprofit organization that serves as UW Medicine's cancer program better positions us to improve the patient experience and advance the overall mission of UW Medicine and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Furthermore, it allows us to build an aligned clinical program that improves our ability to serve more patients in our community, in the region and beyond.

For our patients, our goal is to improve outcomes by:

• Creating a better experience, which integrates primary and specialty care and allows access to all we have to offer
• Increasing access to the latest, innovative care and clinical research

For our research, our goal is to identify cures faster by:

• Increasing the number and speed of clinical trials
• Accelerating research and translating it to patients as quickly as possible

For our teams, our goal is to improve how we work together by:

• Reducing barriers to coordination and collaboration
• Planning research, clinical services and growth in a more coordinated, strategic way

For the past two decades, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance’s members worked together to create a clinical research and care program that leads the world in helping prevent, diagnose, treat and advance cures for cancer. But cancer care and research have changed significantly over the past 20 years, and we now have a deeper understanding of disease and how to prevent, diagnose and treat it. We also have a deeper understanding of our strengths in cancer care and research, as well as the complexity that our current structure creates.

We believed that our structure must evolve to be more aligned and agile. Our ultimate goals are to accelerate research, improve patient care and improve health outcomes for patients with cancer.

Together through the Fred Hutchinson/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium supported by our NCI cancer center support grant (CCSG), we are addressing the cancer needs of our community, including cancers that disproportionately affect BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and other underrepresented communities. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a key component of the grant and formalizes the Consortium and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center’s commitment to this work.

The restructure allows us to benefit from the ongoing DEI work each organization is doing today, enhancing our collective understanding and ability to move our organizations forward. The restructure further enables us to:

• Better identify and combat healthcare inequities related to cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment and integrate this work into our clinical programs and dashboards, so we can develop the solutions faster.
• Ensure timely access to care, equitable access to clinical trials/therapies, and the best outcomes by following and studying outcomes and clinical enrollment to identify and eliminate disparities.
• Better connect comprehensive research to the adult clinical setting, positioning Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and UW Medicine to lead the way in applying an equity lens to our strategy, design of research programs, and support of those research programs.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and UW Medicine are committed to DEI and to becoming antiracist organizations. This work is and will remain critical to our missions. We are committed to continuing our DEI work and to foster inclusive cultures that embrace diversity. Becoming antiracist organizations is not something we have accomplished yet or work that can be finished, but rather something we remain committed to work on and make part of our organizational cultures.

Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and its members regularly reviewed and discussed approaches to strengthening our collaboration since we began our shared work 20 years ago. The experiences of the past two years – from the COVID-19 pandemic to the nation’s reckoning with racial inequities – amplified the urgency and potential impact of evolving our approach.

Each of our organizations rose to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating our ability to innovate, uphold our commitment to our patients and advance research even against the backdrop of pandemic restrictions. We led the world in pushing the science forward as quickly as possible – developing new COVID tests and processing tests from across the country, conducting real-time surveillance and providing a leadership role in the clinical trials that resulted in unprecedented speed of vaccine development. We delivered hundreds of thousands of vaccines to our community. By example, we showed what is possible when health organizations rethink their processes and approach.

Equally importantly, historical and recent events continue to highlight and reinforce the deep correlation between social inequities and poorer health outcomes, including for patients with cancer. Our organizations are strongly committed to addressing health inequities, so that our research and care benefit all patients. We are building an inclusive Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center that embraces the diversity of experience, background and perspectives that drive innovation and support a thriving workforce.

Seattle Children’s, one of SCCA’s original alliance members, will continue to function independently, working in close partnership with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to advance breakthroughs in adult and pediatric oncology.

To make a contribution, you can give online at fredhutch.org or contact our philanthropy team at annualgiving@fredhutch.org or 206.667.4399. Contributions made to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center will benefit adult oncology programs at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and clinically integrated parts of UW Medicine.

Yes, all gifts made will be directed to the intended program and be used for its intended purpose.

For questions about your current or past support of UW Medicine, please contact UW Medicine Advancement at writemed@uw.edu or 206.543.5686.

For questions about your past support of SCCA, please contact annualgiving@fredhutch.org or 206.667.4399.