The work of the ACS Cancer Programs is nothing short of amazing and impactful. The effort you all put forth saves and improves the lives of people affected by cancer, and it has been a privilege and pleasure to work with all of you over the last several years. As Director of the Cancer Programs, I felt fortunate to witness all of you as the living legacy of the ACS founders.
As preparations for the 100-year anniversary of the Commission on Cancer (CoC) came together it was an opportunity to reflect on how the ACS founders’ vision was so solid, sustainable, and compelling that it ultimately demanded the expansion of the Cancer Programs into the seven programs that exist today. For example, enhancing the value of the CoC tumor registry data required that there be a standardized practice of cancer staging, and so the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) was created in 1959. Not only was cancer staging forever standardized, but this development also brought the ACS into several long-term relationships with important governmental cancer community stakeholders.
In 1988, the ACS seized the opportunity to aggregate and report cancer data back to the CoC programs by investing in a centralized, digital form of cancer data management, the National Cancer Database (NCDB). The NCDB is now recognized as one of the largest and most significant cancer databases of its kind. This investment, in turn, provided the opportunity for the ACS to enter into the national research scene as the ACS Oncology Group and now the Cancer Research Program (CRP). And as cancer care became more specialized, so did the Cancer Programs with the formation of the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC), the National Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer (NAPRC), and the Cancer Surgery Standards Program (CSSP). These programs, along with the CoC, continue to move the needle on the quality of cancer care through accreditation standards, operative standards, quality measures, and quality improvement.
You are 46 hard-working staff, 400 dedicated committee members and leaders, and 6,000 committed boots-on-the-ground professionals who support the Cancer Programs, and you are making a difference. You are the best of the best, giving selflessly to move cancer care forward. Thanks to your efforts, we have achieved so much. AJCC transitioned from print to digital. NCDB developed an exceptional portfolio of quality measures and moved the needle on the aspiration of real-time data. NAPBC launched the first patient-centric cancer standards. Three new programs were created: NAPRC, CSSP, and the Cancer National Quality Improvement Collaborative. Undaunted by the pandemic you provided programs with triage criteria, learned to work remotely, and conducted the first-ever Cancer Programs national level quality improvement project on return to screening. And you are still boldly venturing into the future applying new forms of data modeling, developing new prognostic calculators, and conducting large-scale quality improvement projects.
I am grateful to have been a part of these ACS Cancer Programs throughout my professional career and being the Director was a high point. Thank you all, and all the best in your ongoing work!
