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January 29, 2007

The Cancer Program at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center (CCRMC) underwent inspection for accreditation recently by the American College of Surgeons' Commission on Cancer and passed with flying colors.

The Commission reviews cancer programs nationwide every three years, scoring them on 36 standards in eight categories. The CCRMC program has been accredited since 1987, and this year CCRMC received commendations for seven standards.

"I am really proud of our staff here, because the standards we were measured by are those that can only be achieved by teamwork," said Dr. Sharon Hiner, MD, program director. "We have been striving to improve the patient experience in our program, and this validates the progress we have made."

Only about 1,430 of the approximately 5,000 hospitals where cancer patients are treated in this country are accredited through the Commission of Cancer.

Although the inspection by Robert H. Janes, a physician surveyor with the Commission, took place Sept. 21, the results were just received this month.

The seven standards for which CCRMC received commendation are clinical trial research, performance improvement, cancer prevention and detection, registry and data timeframe, outcomes analysis, patient guidelines and staging procedures. Fewer than half of the accredited programs surveyed receive commendations for data and registry timelines or patient guidelines.

The eight categories of the survey include: Institutional and programmatic resources; Cancer committee leadership; Cancer data management and registry operations; Clinical management; Research; Community outreach; Professional education and staff support; and Quality improvement.

"We achieved excellence across the board in this survey," said Hiner, noting that CCRMC received at least one commendation in six of the eight categories. "The challenge now will be to keep improving so we do just as well or better in 2009."

Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, which is run by Contra Costa Health Services and serves Contra Costa Health Plan patients, opened in 1997 and is the newest and most seismically safe hospital in the East Bay. The Cancer Program at CCRMC receives about 4,000 patient visits each year.

The American College of Surgeons was founded in 1913 and is based in Chicago, Ill. For more information about the College and its survey, visit www.facs.org/cancer/ online.

For more information about CCRMC, go to the CCHS website at cchealth.org and click on Regional Medical Center, or call 925-370-5000.

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