In advance of World Cancer Survivor Day on June 4, Catholic Medical Center (CMC) is honored to announce its cancer program has been granted a three-year reaccreditation by the Commission on Cancer (CoC), a quality program of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). To earn voluntary CoC accreditation, a cancer program must meet 34 CoC quality care standards, be evaluated every three years through a survey process, and maintain levels of excellence in the delivery of comprehensive patient-centered care. CMC has been accredited by the CoC since 1976.
As a CoC-accredited cancer center, CMC takes a multidisciplinary approach to treating cancer as a complex group of diseases that requires consultation among surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, diagnostic radiologists, pathologists, and other cancer specialists. This multidisciplinary partnership results in improved patient care.
“From state-of-the-art screening and diagnostics to compassionate and comprehensive treatment programs, CMC is committed to offering patients and their families high quality care they can trust, at a time when they need it most,” said CMC President & CEO Alex Walker.
The CoC Accreditation Program provides the framework for CMC to continuously improve its quality of patient care through various cancer-related programs that focus on the full spectrum of cancer care including prevention, early diagnosis, cancer staging, optimal treatment, rehabilitation, life-long follow-up for recurrent disease and end-of-life care. When patients receive care at a CoC facility, they also have access to information on clinical trials and new treatments, genetic counseling and patient centered services including psycho-social support, a patient navigation process, and a survivorship care plan that documents the care each patient receives and seeks to improve cancer survivors’ quality of life.
In addition to the services offered directly by CMC, the hospital partners with Dartmouth-Health’s nationally-recognized Cancer Center, which offers onsite chemotherapy and clinical trials at the Notre Dame Pavilion on the CMC campus. As part of this partnership, CMC also offers a cardio-oncology program, which addresses the potentially harmful effects that cancer treatment can have on the heart.
Like all CoC-accredited facilities, CMC maintains a cancer registry and contributes data to the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint program of the CoC and American Cancer Society. This nationwide oncology outcomes database is the largest clinical disease registry in the world. Data on all types of cancer are tracked and analyzed through the NCDB and used to explore trends in cancer care. CoC-accredited cancer centers, in turn, have access to information derived from this type of data analysis, which is used to create national, regional and state benchmark reports. These reports help CoC facilities with their quality improvement efforts.
There are currently more than 1,500 CoC-accredited cancer programs in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. CoC-accredited facilities diagnose and/or treat more than 70 percent of all newly diagnosed patients with cancer. When cancer patients choose to seek care locally at a CoC-accredited cancer center, they are gaining access to comprehensive, state-of-the-art cancer care close to home. The CoC provides the public with information on the resources, services and cancer treatment experience for each CoC-accredited cancer program through the CoC Hospital Locator.