Official nudge toward patient-centric oncology practices.

O ncology is ever more patient-centric, and the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC) is setting standards to that end. The organization, which has been accrediting oncology clinics since 1933, has expanded its focus beyond oncology and treatment standards to include several complementary supportive-care programs designed to enhance a patient's cancer experience. These new standards include risk assessment and genetic counseling, palliative care services, the patient navigation process , psychosocial distress screening, and survivor-ship care. For accreditation, institutions must enforce the standards by 2015. The CoC accredits about one-quarter of all institutions offering cancer care in the United States, but those 1,500 centers treat some 70% of all newly diagnosed patients, according to the commission. Although a hospital's decision to apply for accreditation is voluntary, the CoC seal of approval connotes quality cancer care, said Stephen B. Edge, M.D., CoC chair and Alfiero Foundation endowed chair in breast oncology and professor of surgery and oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in New York. chair of the CoC accreditation committee and medical director at Wayne HealthCare in Greenville, Ohio, the new standards were in part prompted by certain Institute of Medicine reports that had criticized oncology care. The CoC considers the standards part of modern oncology. " It's not an easy thing to address the entire continuum of care, but we wanted to make sure that the new standards had a direct patient benefit, and we invited certain advocacy and patient organizations to join us so that all perspectives would be included, " McKellar said. He said that the CoC is the main organization in the country with any power to make cancer centers make changes in cancer care, and although the new programs do not have to be implemented until 2015, the educational process has already begun. " This is a tremendous open door to educate health care professionals , and an opportunity for patients to get every component of care since the commission will be looking over the shoulders of cancer programs to make sure patients are getting that care, " McKellar said. According to Edge, CoC-accredited institutions will have to increase accrual to clinical trials by 2015, but accrual benchmarks will be based on the hos-pital's size. For example, community hospitals, which did not have an accrual requirement before, will have to recruit 2% of their patients for trials but will also get credit for referring …