Home > Education : Prostate Cancer Project: Summary
ACCC's Prostate Cancer "Best Practices" Project
Launched in late 2008, ACCC’s Center for Provider Education’s Prostate Cancer “Best Practices” Project is a new resource for community cancer programs to help develop prostate-specific cancer services in their home communities. The following is a summary of the main components of the multi-phase project.
Phase 1
In late 2008, ACCC's Center for Provider Education launched its Prostate Cancer "Best Practices" Project. The goal: to provide community cancer programs with the information and education they need to develop their own "model" prostate cancer services. The first step was to identify five prostate cancer programs that 1) empower patients with information and knowledge about choices, 2) coordinate multidisciplinary services starting with diagnosis, and 3) collect standardized treatment outcomes data. Five model programs were selected:
- Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine
- Presbyterian Hospital, Charlotte, North Carolina
- Palo Alto Medical Foundation, Palo Alto, California
- Regional Cancer Center, ProHealth Care, Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Each model program participated in a series of interviews to examine best practices and critical success factors for multidisciplinary prostate cancer care. A series of articles featuring these model programs will appear in the September/October 2009 Oncology Issues. This special issue of ACCC’s journal will be a resource for community cancer centers interested in developing a prostate cancer program, and will include the best practices and critical success factors identified in Phase 1 of the project, as well as case studies, and other tools.
Critical Success Factors
"Many programs get stuck at the starting gate," admits Mary Lou Bowers, MBA, of the Pritchard Group, the consulting firm that is providing onsite education for ACCC’s Prostate Cancer "Best Practices" Project. "How do we get multiple groups of urologists together? How do we get urologists and radiation oncologists to offer advice to patients when there are a variety of treatment choices available? How do we make sure that the patient has a choice and understands the possible outcomes of each option?"
According to Bowers, the five model programs participating in Phase 1 of ACCC’s Prostate Cancer "Best Practices" Project identified a number of critical success factors including:
- Matching a prostate cancer program to identified needs in the community
- Setting realistic program objectives based on market reality
- Securing unbiased physician champions
- Engaging appropriate clinical players
- Investing in a patient advocate and/or nurse navigator position
- Empowering patients with information and knowledge
- Collecting and publishing standardized treatment outcomes data
- Promoting effective marketing and outreach in the community
- Managing the program’s financial needs and resources through a detailed comparative analysis.
Phase 2
In March 2009, ACCC launched Phase 2 of its Prostate Cancer "Best Practices" Project. During this Phase, five ACCC-member pilot sites were selected from across the U.S. These pilot sites received onsite education about the process and structures that "model" community-based prostate-specific cancer programs have used to initiate and grow their successful programs. The goal is to help these community cancer programs:
- Identify the need for prostate-specific care in their communities
- Open lines of communication among providers
- Develop a collaborative team approach to care
- Provide guidance in planning and implementing a successful comprehensive prostate cancer program.
The five pilot sites that received this onside training were:
ACCC's MyNetwork
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
ACCC Vision Channel