NCDB Terms of Use and Reporting Conditions on Public Reporting of Data

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) and the National Cancer Database (NCDB) developed the NCDB Quality Reporting Tools to provide CoC-accredited cancer programs with mechanisms to evaluate the cancer care delivered to their patients and assess comparatively to those treated at other CoC-accredited cancer programs. The information generated from these useful tools allow CoC programs to perform internal quality review and monitoring of care.

The NCDB Quality Reporting Tools include:

• NCDB Hospital Comparison Benchmark Reports (HCBR) - Public and Private
• NCDB Survival Reports
• Cancer Quality Improvement Program (CQIP) Reports
• NCDB Rapid Cancer Reporting System (RCRS)
• Site by Stage Distribution Reports
• NCDB Completeness Reports

Permissible use:

• Quality improvement and assurance involving the cancer program and hospital
• Identifying and reporting the need for cancer prevention programs
• Identifying areas for cancer screening programs
• Justifying grants for the institution
• Responding to state cancer care plans
• Education for advocacy, medical education, and patient care
• Meeting and maintaining compliance with the Standards for CoC accreditation
• Members of CoC-accredited cancer programs wishing to develop print or electronic reports to be distributed to internal staff, patients and public, including annual reports, public websites, community outreach brochures, and announcements of CoC-accreditation
• Authors of abstracts, articles, or chapters of scientific meetings, medical journals or books that utilize or present NCDB data

Non-Permissible use:

• Reporting of any data obtained from the NCDB Quality Reporting Tools for marketing purposes
• Reporting of any outcomes data including unadjusted and risk-adjusted survival and operative mortality rates calculated and reported by the NCDB
• Reporting of any data obtained from the NCDB to be used for comparisons; meaning comparing your program to all CoC programs, comparing your program to other program types, etc.

Reporting Conditions:

• You agree to include a credit line stating the information was derived from the ACS’ NCDB in all publications and disseminated materials
• When confidence intervals or statistical significance levels are applicable, they must be included in the report.
• The tools, content, and data are owned by ACS
• The ACS holds copyrights for all text, tables, figures, and data generated by or featured within the NCDB Quality Reporting Tools
• Permission is granted on a limited, non-exclusive basis for both print and electronic use
• The ACS and the CoC will not verify the changes and are not responsible for conclusions drawn from any modification of data obtained from the reporting tools

For any questions about the reporting policies or the information above, please direct all questions to ncdb@facs.org.