St. Mary’s Cancer Program has been granted Three-Year Accreditation with Commendation from the Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of Surgeons.
To earn voluntary CoC accreditation, a cancer program must meet or exceed 34 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. Three-Year Accreditation with Commendation is only awarded to a facility that exceeds standard requirements at the time of its triennial survey.
St. Mary’s Cancer Program 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.
“At St. Mary’s, we pride ourselves in giving the most advanced, highest quality cancer care in the region – healing body, mind and spirit,†said Sheila Hauck DNP, RN, OCN, NEA-BC Director of Oncology, Palliative Care, and Professional Practice.
The CoC Accreditation Program provides the framework for St. Mary’s to 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.
St. Mary’s, which is part of Ascension, the nation’s largest Catholic and non-profit health system, continues to maintain a cancer registry and contributes data to the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint program of the CoC and American Cancer Society (ACS). 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.
