Future plans for quality assurance in radiation oncology in the United States

The Patterns of Care Study (PCS) is conducting continuing surveys in key disease sites that will monitor changes in processes and outcome of care from 1973 to 1985. The PCS will conduct a process survey in 1984 that will provide the baseline data for the quality assessment survey program available to individual facilities in the United States in 1985. This program will be conducted through the American College of Radiology and operated by the joint ACR-ASTR Quality Assessment Committee which includes representatives from the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. It will be a voluntary program that will be paid for by the facility requesting assessment. The feedback will be confidential and constructed in a manner as to maximally help the facility recognize areas where improvements can be made. We are continuing to work with licensing accrediting groups such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH) and the American College of Surgeons' cancer accreditation program to advise them of the service we will be providing, and to obtain their recognition and recommendation of this service. This program will provide a means of meaningful quality assessment for the individual facility, and the opportunity for each facility to improve the quality of their care. In addition, through these surveys we will continue to monitor changes in the national benchmarks for processes and outcomes of care of key disease sites in which radiation therapy plays an important interventional role.