Faces of 340B

Sandra Clark, 340B Coordinator, Meadville Medical Center, Pa.

The 340B program is an intensely personal topic for Sandy Clark. She was inspired to become a 340B coordinator due to the experience of one special patient in particular – her own son. Sandy’s son was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2005, just a month before graduating from high school. At the time, Meadville Medical Center did not have the oncology services that he required, meaning Sandy and her son had to travel long distances to get him the care he needed. Thankfully, her son came through his cancer “with flying colors” and today is a proud, healthy father of three. Meadville Medical Center now has an oncology institute that serves many northwestern Pennsylvania patients like Sandy’s son in a way that avoids the need for them to travel long distances for their care. The institute also forms the backbone of the center’s 340B program, which enables it to offer additional specialized services such as dermatology, neurology, nephrology, and diagnostic imaging to “country folk” in a large rural area between Erie to the north and Pittsburgh to the south. Sandy knows the quality of the care Meadville Medical Center provides will not falter if 340B were to be eliminated or reduced. But she worries that the ability of the hospital to offer specialized services locally to other patients just like her son would be in danger.