Avital Levy Carlis to Lead Mass General Cancer Center at CDH

NORTHAMPTON — Avital Levy Carlis has joined Cooley Dickinson Hospital as administrative director of the Massachusetts General Cancer Center at Cooley Dickinson Hospital and service-line development.

Carlis earned a master’s in public health, with a concentration in health policy and management, from the University of California, Berkeley, and holds bachelor’s degrees in both biology and international history from the University of Rochester. Most recently, she served as director of Finance for the Mass General Cancer Center and was the administrative director for the division of Hematology and Oncology at Mass General.

Cooley Dickinson and the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center have collaborated in providing cancer care since 2009. In 2015, the Mass General Cancer Center at Cooley Dickinson Hospital will open.

According to CDH administrators, cancer is complex, and it takes a coordinated relationship between community hospitals and academic medical centers to create a new cancer-care paradigm where the right approach to care and treatment is delivered to the right patient at the right time and in the right place. That philosophy will be reflected in the Mass General Cancer Center at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. Through this collaboration, Western Mass. residents will experience a combination of the Mass General Cancer Center and Cooley Dickinson ways of working: a blend of powerful, sub-specialized care — focused around the needs of people living with cancer and their families — and a neighbor’s understanding of the community’s needs.