Doctors Medical Center earns national accreditation from the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons

The Commission on Cancer (CoC), a quality program of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), has granted a three-year accreditation to the cancer program at Doctors Medical Center. 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.

Because it is a CoC-accredited cancer center, Doctors Medical Center 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 Doctors Medical Center, we are committed to making sure we provide compassionate, high-quality cancer care to our patients,” said Katie Cooper, RN, Oncology Program Coordinator at Doctors Medical Center. “We are proud to serve our community with a nationally-recognized cancer program that allows our patients to stay close to home for care.”

The CoC accreditation program provides the framework for Doctors Medical Center 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.

Like all CoC-accredited facilities, Doctors Medical Center 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.