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 a Commendation level of compliance with seven standards that represent the full scope of the cancer program (cancer committee leader5ship, cancer data management, clinical services, research, community outreach and quality improvement). In addition, the facility receives a compliance rating for the remaining 29 standards. Sixty-six programs received the OAA as a result of surveys performed in 2007. This number represents approximately 15 percent of the 453 programs surveyed during this period. A majority of recipients are community-based facilities: teaching hospitals, NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and Network Cancer Programs also received the award.
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 approved 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-approved cancer programs in the US and Puerto Rico, representing close to 25 percent of all hospitals. These CoC-approved facilities diagnose and/or treat 80 percent of newly diagnosed cancer patients each year.
The Approvals 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. Approval by the CoC is given only to those facilities that have voluntarily committed to providing the highest level of quality cancer care and that undergo a rigorous evaluation process and review of their performance. To maintain approval, facilities with CoC-approved cancer programs must undergo an on-site review every three years.
Receiving care at a CoC-approved cancer program ensures that a patient will have access to:
- Comprehensive care, including a range of state-of-the-art services and equipment
- A multi-specialty, team approach to coordinate the best treatment options
- Information about ongoing clinical trials and new treatment options
- Access to cancer-related information, education and support
- A cancer registry that collects data on type and stage of cancers and treatment results and offers lifelong patient follow-up
- Ongoing monitoring and improvement of care
- Quality care close to home
Cancer patient data is reported by each CoC-approved cancer program to the CoC’s National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint program with the American Cancer Society (ACS). The NCDB currently contains patient demographics, tumor characteristics, and treatment and outcomes information for more than 16 million cancer patients diagnosed and treated at hospital cancer programs in the US between 1985 and 2003. This data accounts for approximately two-thirds of newly diagnosed cancer cases in the U.S. each year, and is used regularly to monitor the quality of patient care delivered in CoC-approved cancer programs.
Through an exclusive partnership with the ACS, the CoC provides the public with information on the resources, services and cancer treatment experience fro each CoC-approved cancer program. This information is shared with the public on the ACS Web site at www.cancer.org and through the ACS National Cancer Information Center at 1-800-ACS-2345.
