ACCC Center for Provider Education: Overview
Our mission is to provide community-based cancer care programs with the skills necessary to increase their efficiency while maintaining the highest standards of quality care. The Center for Provider Education relies on educators with expertise in management of hospital and office-based cancer programs, financial analysis, policy and reimbursement, marketing, and healthcare economics to achieve this goal.
Through ACCC's Center for Provider Education, members can learn practical strategies for meeting the challenges of running a modern cancer center or group practice. Hands-on courses for physicians, practice managers, nurses, oncology pharmacists, financial officers, and coders/billers are available in cities throughout the country as well as on-line.
Yes! ACCC's Center for Provider Education courses make a difference in community-based cancer programs.
In 2009 ACCC will launch a number of national surveys and projects to help cancer programs better understand their competition and meet their patients’ needs.
Benchmarking and Trends.
In 2009 the Association of Community Cancer Centers will distribute results and analysis of its new national "Survey of Trends in the Community Hospital Cancer Center Setting," which is designed to help cancer programs understand the implications of these trends and identify alternative and effective organizational adaptations.
ACCC will examine and provide data on a number of vital issues, including:
- Infusion center space, nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in the infusion center, likelihood that cancer program patient volumes will increase as community oncologists reduce infusions
- Scope of cancer service line
- Consolidation
- Pharmacists’ role
- Acuity system use and advantage in setting staffing levels
- EMR prevalence
- Use of new technologies and clinical technology capital budgets
- Use of reimbursement specialists and the effect on program financial health.
Best Practices.
In 2009 ACCC will launch its "Prostate Cancer Best Practices Project." Its goal is to identify best practices that ensure 1) a multidisciplinary approach to prostate cancer care, 2) open communication, and 3) patient access to state-of-the-art treatment within the community. ACCC will provide its members with a webcast and educational materials designed to help them gain market share and provide patients with access to various provider specialists in a non-threatening, patient-focused environment..
In 2009 ACCC will launch "Cancer Care Patient Navigation: A Call to Action," a project designed to help community cancer centers develop, implement, and/or enhance their patient navigation programs by 1) identifying barriers to programmatic success, 2) increasing successful implementation of patient navigation services and refining staffing models, and 3) establishing effective metrics for measuring patient navigation services internally and for benchmarking patient navigation services against other community cancer centers. Webcasts and educational materials for ACCC members will be available.
Don Jewler, Communications Director
