Neely gives double boost to Tufts Medical Center

Boston Bruins hall of famer Cam Neely is increasing his charitable foundation's investment at Tufts-New England Medical Center with $2 million in funding for a pediatric-bone marrow transplant facility and $5 million worth of improvements to its neurosurgery program.

Neely's help gives a needed high-profile boost to advanced medical treatments available at the financially challenged hospital, which last year posted its first surpluses after losing $54 million during the prior two years.

It also puts the hospital at the forefront of efforts by healthcare providers to increase their involvement with sports teams and professional athletes -- marriages that trace their roots back to 1948 when the Boston Braves, followed shortly thereafter by Ted Williams and the Red Sox, began raising money for the Jimmy Fund, conducted by what is now the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

In Boston, New England Baptist Hospital built a practice facility in Waltham for the Boston Celtics and won the right to bill itself as the NBA team's official hospital. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center paid millions for the right to call itself the official hospital of the Red Sox.

And in New York, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, perhaps the biggest cancer care competition in the Northeast for Dana-Farber, announced a fund-raising partnership with the New York Yankees this month to benefit pediatric cancer patients, called the Yankee Universe Fund.

Neely and his brother Scott Neely are building on a partnership with Tufts-New England Medical Center that began in 1997, when they established the Cam Neely Foundation to create and fund Neely House, a residential floor for cancer patients and their families that resembles a comfortable hotel. The foundation has since expanded to support the Neely Center for Clinical Cancer Research and a bone-marrow transplant facility for adults, the Neely Cell Therapy and Collection Center.

Work has yet to begin on the $2 million pediatric bone marrow center, to be built at the medical center's Floating Hospital for Children. It will include facilities for families to remain close to their children during the days and weeks of inpatient treatment.

Both of Neely's parents died of cancer. The neurosurgery center improvements, which are largely complete, will be named after their father, Michael Neely, who died of brain cancer. Cam Neely said in an interview yesterday that he welcomes overtures from the hospital to help raise the profile of its cancer programs. Tufts-New England Medical Center is a major teaching hospital but lacks the brand awareness of bigger hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

''We don't think the hospital, and the cancer center especially, gets the recognition it deserves," Neely said.

''You look at what there is in this town for cancer care and treatment, and there's phenomenal institutions with great brand names," he said. ''We're trying to raise the awareness of what the cancer center here has to offer as well."

Neely's name is known to millions of New England sports fans. The right wing was inducted into the National Hockey League Hall of Fame last year after a stellar career that ended in 1996.

The reason why an academic medical center would want to affiliate itself with a sports star can be summed up in one word, said Tobe Berkovitz, an associate dean at Boston University's College of Communication: Competition.

Patients are gaining more control over their care, from shopping for doctors to seeking out specialty treatments at particular hospitals or hospital-affiliated outpatient clinics, which they hear about through word of mouth, mass-media advertising, and from their own primary-care physicians. Insurance companies and nonprofit organizations are posting quality information about hospitals and patients, anticipating even greater patient decision-making.

In this increasingly consumer-oriented marketplace, hospitals want to place themselves at ''top of mind" among healthcare shoppers, Berkovitz said.

''What comes to mind first is really important, because you have so many choices, so many world-class hospitals and healthcare systems in Boston," he said.

''If you want publicity, you have two places to go, and that is entertainment celebrities or sports celebrities," said Berkovitz. ''Sports celebrities make much more sense for a hospital because we think of them as people of health and energy and vigor."

Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund is closely related to the Red Sox but it was founded as part of a Boston Braves fund-raising effort to assist children with cancer in 1948. Boston Braves owner Lou Perini said every community in Massachusetts that contributed to the fund would get visits from baseball players, and money poured in -- $200,000 in the first year, said Karen Cummings, a spokeswoman for the Jimmy Fund.

New Englanders still contribute heavily to the Jimmy Fund. ''If you look at where the funds are coming from, that would be a map of Red Sox Nation," she said. The Jimmy Fund has raised more than $350 million since its founding.

Neely's charitable foundation is much smaller than the Jimmy Fund but of major importance to Tufts-New England Medical Center. With a golf tournament and other activities, it collected about $1.8 million in 2004, the last year for which public figures are available, and has collected about $13 million since its inception in 1997. Neely said donations flow from around North America but mostly from New England.

In addition to getting a marketing boost, practical advantages for the hospital are substantial. The $5 million in assistance for the neurosurgery program has been used for new administrative and office space for doctors and staff, waiting areas for patients, as well as clinical improvements, including the planned purchase of two advanced machines that will help brain surgeons more accurately target brain tumors, said Dr. John K. Erban, chief of the division of hematology/oncology.

The money was critical to attracting first-rate surgeons from other hospitals, including Beth Israel, and enhancing the program, Erban said. ''It's fair to say that without this piece, the commitment from the Neely Foundation to the hospital, this wouldn't have happened," he said.

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.