The Commission on Cancer (CoC) Approvals Program encourages hospitals, treatment centers, and other facilities to improve their quality of patient care through various cancer-related programs. These programs are concerned with prevention, early diagnosis, pretreatment evaluation, staging, optimal treatment, rehabilitation, surveillance for recurrent disease, support services, and end-of-life care.

The availability of a full range of medical services along with a multidisciplinary team approach to patient care at approved cancer programs has resulted in approximately 75 percent of all newly diagnosed cancer patients being treated in CoC-Approved Cancer Programs.

Recognizing that cancer is a complex group of diseases, the CoC Cancer Program Standards promote consultation among surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, diagnostic radiologists, pathologists, and other cancer specialists. This multidisciplinary cooperation results in improved patient care.

Five elements are key to the success of a Commission-approved cancer program:

1. The clinical services provide state-of-the-art pretreatment evaluation, staging, treatment and clinical follow-up for cancer patients seen at the facility for primary, secondary, tertiary, or quarternary care.
2. The cancer committee leads the program through setting goals, monitoring activity, evaluating patient outcomes, and improving care.
3. The cancer conferences provide a forum for patient consultation and contribute to physician education.
4. The quality improvement program is the mechanism for evaluating and improving patient outcomes.
5. The cancer registry and database is the basis for monitoring the quality of care.

Every CoC-Approved Cancer Program must provide a host of basic services. These services are provided on-site at the facility, by referral, or are coordinated with other facilities or local agencies. Services include:

Diagnostic

Clinical laboratory
Diagnostic imaging

Treatment

Medical oncology
Radiation oncology
Surgical procedures

Other clinical

AJCC staging
Clinical research
Patient guidelines
Oncology nursing
Pain management

Rehabilitation

Support

Counseling
Discharge planning
Hospice care
Nutritional support
Pastoral care
Patient and family support

Prevention and early detection

Cancer Program Categories

Accredited cancer programs are assigned a Category of Approval that describes the services available at the facility. Categories may have customized requirements for selected standards depending on the type of facility or the number of new patients seen each year. For example, the frequency of consultative and educational cancer conferences and the number of patients accrued to cancer-related clinical trials are dependent on the criteria mentioned above.

Do you want to find out if your program is accredited? Find an Approved Cancer Program by searching the current list of approved programs available from the CoC database.

Disclaimer

The American College of Surgeons does not warrant or make any guarantees or assurances related to outcomes of treatment provided by institutions that have cancer programs approved by the Commission on Cancer.

Revised April 24, 2007

Commission on Cancer