PA Cancer Outcomes Data is Publicly Released through New Partnership between ACoS Commission on Cancer and PHCQA

"The American College of Surgeons (ACoS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) has joined with the Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance (PHCQA) to make cancer quality data from participating Pennsylvania hospitals available to the public. The initiative, which is the first of its kind in the U.S., will include data from 72 percent (52 programs) of all CoC-accredited cancer programs in Pennsylvania ... PHCQA chose to work with the CoC on this initiative because of the CoC’s experience in developing and monitoring quality measures in its cancer programs, according to Dr. McKellar. He also said that this health care quality initiative is important for patients because it provides public access to quality data from participating facilities in Pennsylvania. Additionally, the website provides a list of CoC-accredited cancer centers in Pennsylvania ... The National Cancer Database (NCDB), a nationwide oncology database operated by the American Cancer Society and Commission on Cancer, played an important role in making this collaboration happen. The NCDB staff was instrumental in developing the agreements from the participating facilities, recruiting facilities to participate, and reporting the data to the PHCQA, according to Dr. McKellar. He also noted that all CoC programs must report data on each cancer patient treated at their institutions. These are the data used to monitor compliance with the quality measures, which are specific cancer care recommendations utilized for quality improvement ... The outcomes reporting from this initiative is available on the PHCQ website at http://www.phcqa.org/ [.]"