2008 Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients
News from the American College of Surgeons |
Contact: Cory Petty |
CHICAGO—The Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of Surgeons has granted its 2008 CoC Outstanding Achievement Award to the following currently accredited and newly accredited cancer programs at 95 facilities across the United States.
View the full list of Award Recipients
Established in 2004, the CoC Outstanding Achievement Award (OAA) is designed to recognize cancer programs that strive for excellence in providing quality care to cancer patients. A facility receives the award following the on-site evaluation by a physician surveyor during which time the facility demonstrates a Commendation level of compliance with seven standards that represent the full scope of the cancer program (cancer committee leadership, cancer data management, clinical services, research, community outreach, and quality improvement). In addition, the facility receives a compliance rating for the remaining 29 cancer program standards. Ninety-five programs received the OAA as a result of surveys performed in 2008. This number represents approximately nineteen percent of the 478 programs surveyed during this period. A majority of recipients are community-based facilities; however, teaching hospitals,
Established in 1922 by the American College of Surgeons, the Commission on Cancer is a consortium of professional organizations dedicated to improving survival and quality of life for cancer patients through standard-setting, prevention, research, education, and the monitoring of comprehensive quality care. Its membership includes Fellows of the
The CoC’s core functions include setting standards for quality, multidisciplinary cancer patient care; surveying facilities to evaluate compliance with the 36 CoC standards; collecting standardized, high quality data from accredited facilities; and using the data to develop effective educational interventions to improve cancer care outcomes at the national, state, and local level. There are currently more than 1,400 CoC-accredited cancer programs in the
The Accreditation Program, a component of the CoC, sets quality-of-care standards for cancer programs and reviews the programs to ensure that they conform to those standards.
Accreditation by the CoC is given only to those facilities that have voluntarily committed to pro-viding the highest level of quality cancer care and that undergo a rigorous evaluation process and review of their performance. To maintain accreditation, facilities with CoC-accredited cancer programs must undergo an on-site review every three years. Receiving care at a CoC-accredited cancer program ensures that a patient will have access to the full quality spectrum of comprehensive cancer care close to home.
In addition cancer patients data are reported by each CoC-accredited cancer program to the CoC’s National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint program with the American Cancer Society. These data account for approximately two-thirds of newly diagnosed cancer cases in the
Through an exclusive partnership with the American Cancer Society, the CoC provides the public with information on the resources, services, and cancer treatment experience for each CoC-accredited cancer program. This information is shared with the public on the ACS Web site at www.cancer.org and through the
CoC Outstanding Achievement Award
Revised April 1, 2009