FirstHealth’s 2010 Cancer Report now available online
| Date Posted: 11/23/2010
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Manlio Goetzl, M.D. |
PINEHURST – FirstHealth of the Carolinas’ 2010 Cancer Report is now available for online viewing.
The report includes a statistical look at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital’s Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Program as well as an overview of the hospital’s Cancer Registry and a summary of FirstHealth’s Clinical Trials program.
“It is important to regularly review the statistics for our hospital’s cancer program, both to look for trends and to compare ourselves to state and national averages,” says Jeffrey Acker, M.D., medical director of Moore Regional’s Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center. “This allows us the opportunity to gain perspective on how we are doing at the local level. Publishing this data not only informs the community about general cancer issues, but also shows everyone that we strive to meet and in many cases exceed comparative national standards.”
In the document’s major site report, Manlio Goetzl, M.D., a urologist at Pinehurst Surgical, discusses kidney and renal pelvis cancer, noting that kidney cancer will be the seventh most common cancer diagnosed in men and the eighth most common cancer diagnosed in women in 2010.
“In the past, patients were usually diagnosed when symptomatic so they usually had advanced disease at presentation,” Dr. Goetzl says in the report. “However, as the use of cross-sectional radiologic studies has increased, more kidney tumors are diagnosed incidentally and thus at a lower stage. Over the last 20 years, there has been an increase in Stage 1 kidney cancer and a decrease in more advanced Stage 2 and higher disease. At Moore Regional Hospital, our statistics mirror this stage migration.”
Moore Regional Hospital’s Cancer Program is accredited by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (ACoS CoC) as a Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Program. Each cancer program must undergo a rigorous evaluation and review of its performance and compliance with the CoC standards. To maintain accreditation, facilities with accredited cancer programs must undergo an on-site review every three years.
After its most recent review in May 2008, Moore Regional’s program received full CoC approval with commendation and was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award (OAA). Only 95 programs in the United States received the OAA as a result of surveys performed in 2008. The number represents about 19 percent of the 478 programs surveyed during this period.
“As part of our CoC accreditation, we are required to ensure that quality care is provided to our cancer patients,” says Leta Vess, supervisor of the Cancer Registry at Moore Regional. “A clinically meaningful analysis of patient diagnosis, treatment and outcomes is necessary for this effort. The analysis includes diagnostic evaluation, treatment modalities, survival data, and comparison to state and national benchmarks. The cancer program publishes this data in an annual report so our community will know how we are doing and to increase awareness of the efforts of our program to meet and exceed national standards of care.”
The information collected by Moore Regional’s Cancer Registry is reported to the N.C. Central Cancer Registry and to the National Cancer Data Base. From there, it goes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute to provide public health information for research, results, trends and statistics.
“Cancer statistics are collected in hospital registries all over the country – one patient at a time,” Vess says.
According to Susan Beaty, R.N., administrative director of Oncology Services at Moore Regional, an annual cancer report is important to physicians and the community alike.
“The report allows the physicians to use local cancer statistics to more accurately provide the community with an understanding of cancer locally,” she says. “By collecting this information, we are also able to determine what cancer services are needed most in our community.”
Click here to see the 2010 Cancer Report. If you would like a printed version of the report, call (910) 715-1478 or (800) 213-3284 toll-free..
