A new partnership between Simmons Cancer Institute (SCI) at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville will expand area cancer patients’ access to cancer care. Edem Agamah, MD, MS, FACP, formerly of Central Illinois Hematology Oncology Center in Springfield, has joined Simmons Cancer Institute and will see patients on Tuesdays in Jacksonville. Swati Pathak, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine at SIU School of Medicine, will begin seeing patients on Mondays in November at Passavant. Pathak is also a member of Simmons Cancer Institute

Patients of SIU HealthCare now have easy, free and secure access to their personal health information online, allowing them to request appointments, refill prescriptions, view lab results and receive updates to changes in their health record. Launched Oct. 1, the password-protected patient portal, available at SIUHealthCare.org , “allows patients to directly communicate with their doctors’ offices, manage their health and their family’s health online and request prescription refills anywhere using a computer, smartphone or tablet,” said Harald Lausen, DO, MA, chief medical officer of SIU