St. James Cancer 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 Three-Year Accreditation to the SCL Health Cancer Centers of Montana at St. James Healthcare. 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 level of excellence in the delivery of comprehensive patient-centered care.

Because it is a CoC-accredited cancer center, St. James 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.

"The American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer accreditation ensures that St. James is providing the highest-quality cancer care to our patients and community," said Jennifer Davenport, MD St. James Healthcare's Chief Medical Officer. "This accreditation is proof of the dedication of our cancer treatment team and their efforts to construct a multidisciplinary program for all of our cancer patients."

The CoC Accreditation Program provides the framework for St. James 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, St. James maintains a cancer registry and contributes data to the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint program of the CoC and American Cancer Society. Data on all types of cancer are tracked and analyzed through the NCDB and used to explore trends in cancer care.

St. James will now have access to information derived from this type of data analysis and these reports will help with 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 cancer care locally at St. James, they are gaining access to comprehensive, state-of-the-art cancer care close to home.