Published on June 4, 2021
The Phelps Health Delbert Day Cancer Institute (DDCI) has earned accreditation from the Commission on Cancer (CoC), a quality program of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), for another three years.
To earn voluntary CoC accreditation, a cancer program must meet all 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.
Phelps Health has been accredited with the CoC since 2005 and is the only regional program to hold this designation.
“The American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer accreditation is an extremely valuable asset to our cancer center as it provides a way to monitor patient care and treatment quality,” said Christopher Spencer, MD, MS, DABR, the medical director of the Phelps Health DDCI and medical director of radiation oncology at Phelps Health.
“Earning accreditation also offers a benchmark to compare ourselves to other accredited cancer centers throughout the nation to ensure that we are providing the highest-quality care to our patients and our communities,” Dr. Spencer said.
As a CoC-accredited cancer center, the Phelps Health DDCI 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.
Receiving care at an accredited cancer center allows patients to feel confident that they are receiving exceptional care, according to Dr. Spencer.
“The care our patients receive at the Phelps Health DDCI is on the same level as other cancer centers that are providing the best care possible to their patients,” he said.
The CoC accreditation program provides the framework for Phelps Health to improve its quality of cancer care through various programs that focus on the full spectrum of cancer care including prevention, early diagnosis, cancer staging, optimal treatment, rehabilitation, lifelong follow-up for recurrent disease and end-of-life care.
When patients receive care at a CoC-accredited 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, Phelps Health maintains a cancer registry and contributes data to the National Cancer Database (NCDB), a joint program of the CoC and American Cancer Society and 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 use this data to create national, regional and state benchmark reports that help CoC facilities with their quality improvement efforts.
There are currently more than 1,500 CoC-accredited cancer programs in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and CoC-accredited facilities diagnose and/or treat more than 70 percent of all newly diagnosed patients with cancer. The Phelps Health DDCI is the only CoC-accredited facility within a 40-mile radius of Rolla, MO.
Find Cancer Care, Close to Home
To learn more about cancer care services at Phelps Health, call (573) 458-3324.
