St. Elizabeth Healthcare’s new Cancer Center located in Edgewood Kentuck is celebrating its new name — The Yung Family Cancer Center.
A major gift from the Yung Family Foundation will put the family name on the Cancer Center, advancing its mission to provide enhanced cancer care — early detection, quality treatment, clinical research and trials, and best patient care — close to home.
William J. Yung III is president of Columbia Sussex, a privately owned company based in Crestview Hills that operates multiple hotels — Marriotts, Hyatts, and Hiltons among them — in the nation’s leading destinations. He is also president of the Yung Family Foundation.
Yung provided a $7 million donation to St. Elizabeth in 2021 — then the largest gift in St. Elizabeth history — to name the Florence Wormald Heart & Vascular Institute for his mother, honoring her “courage, independence and pioneering spirit” that served as a catalyst in his life.
St. Elizabeth opened its state-of-the-art 250,000-square-foot Cancer Center in September, 2020. It offers comprehensive cancer detection, diagnosis, and care — all under one roof. With an emphasis on precision medicine and genomic health, screening education and prevention, clinical research and advanced, innovative technology, the center aims to provide a seamless experience for patients undergoing treatment.
“The Yung Family is very interested in improving outcomes,” said Dr. Doug Flora, executive medical director of the Center. “They share our deep values about quality care.
“We are deeply grateful to the Yung Family Foundation for their incredible generosity. As Siddhartha Mukherjee noted in The Emperor of All Maladies, ‘the cancer landscape has been radically reshaped by philanthropic investment.’ Their support will drive the innovation and compassionate care that our region depends on, ensuring access to the most advanced treatments. This partnership truly changes the future of cancer care in our community.”
Dr. Flora says that the center has already been able to attract 40 new cancer care providers — top experts in subspecialties — over the last few years. That improves St. E.’s ability to take care of patients — and to provide personalized cancer medicine.
“We want to continue to perform at the highest level,” he said. “Thanks to this gift, we are closer than ever to achieving that goal. The true impact of these dollars isn’t just in the dollars — it’s in the lives saved, the families supported, and the communities transformed. This gift is the ink that lets us rewrite the future of cancer care, allowing us to make a lasting difference in the lives of our patients.”The Yung Family Foundation’s significant donation to St. Elizabeth Healthcare is inspired by several key factors:
William J. Yung III, the president of the Yung Family Foundation, has a personal history of supporting healthcare initiatives. His experiences with health issues seem to have motivated him to make a difference:
In a previous donation to the University of Cincinnati for anxiety and depression research, Yung mentioned his own struggle with finding the right medication, stating, “When you have an illness and you suffer through it, you want to — if you can — find things that will alleviate it for other people”2.
Kentucky faces the highest rates of overall cancer incidence and death in the United States1.
The national cancer incidence rate is 453.2 per 100,000 people annually, but Kentucky’s is significantly higher at 506.81.
The Yung family has strong ties to the local community:
Derek Haught, executive director of the Yung Family Foundation, stated, “We’re based in this community, our businesses are in this community, so we want our neighbors and our employees and our own family to be able to avail themselves a top-level cancer center”1.
The foundation aims to enhance local healthcare capabilities:
They want to reduce the need for people to leave the region for top-level cancer care.
The donation is intended to help attract top experts in subspecialties and improve the ability to provide personalized cancer medicine1.
In 2021, they donated $7 million to St. Elizabeth’s Heart & Vascular Institute1.
They gave $1 million to Christ Hospital Health Network in 2023 for oncology services1.
In 2019, they pledged $2.1 million to the University of Cincinnati for precision medicine studies1.
This latest donation is part of a broader strategy to significantly improve healthcare outcomes in the region, with a particular focus on cancer care and research.