CoC Hosts Annual Spring Meeting

The CoC hosted its annual spring meeting in Chicago on May 9. Approximately 90 members, representing the ACS Fellowship and CoC Member Organizations attended.

CoC Chair Timothy Mullett, MD, MBA, FACS, opened the meeting with a discussion of CoC expansion opportunities in US rural regions and internationally. Ingrid Lizarraga, MBBS, FACS, provided an overview of the Iowa pilot program to engage rural cancer programs in the accreditation process. Dr. Mullett then reviewed continuing discussions with programs in Canada and the UK regarding a new international CoC accreditation option.

Following updates from the various CoC committees, speakers provided updates on national quality improvement initiatives, including Dr. Mullett reporting on Just ASK/Beyond ASK; Laurie Kirstein, MD, FACS, reporting on Breaking Barriers; and David Odell, MD, MS, FACS, on Lung NODES. Participants also learned more about health equity efforts, including a report from Bonnie Simpson Mason, MD, FAAOS, on the ACS DEI Resource and Implementation Toolkit, as well as a report from ACS Cancer Programs Senior Manager of Accreditation Erin Reuter on the upcoming CoC Health Equity Toolkit.

In a series of updates on National Cancer Database (NCDB) resources, Judy Boughey, MBBCh, FACS, presented a report on the NCDB Annual Report. Kelley Chan, MD, discussed recent research on the value of CoC accreditation, and Lauren Janczewski, MD, and ACS Cancer Programs Senior Statistician/Technical Lead Joseph Cotler provided an update on the Cancer Survivor Calculator. Finally, ACS Senior Manager of NCDB Statistics and Analytics Bryan Palis presented on the NCDB Benchmark Reports.