St. Tammany Health System, in collaboration with its partners at St. Tammany Cancer Center – A Campus of Ochsner Medical Center, has been re-accredited by the Commission on Cancer (CoC). This voluntary re-accreditation, which requires adherence to 35 quality care standards, is valid for three years.
“St. Tammany Health System is proud to have been recognized as an accredited ACS Commission on Cancer program since 1995,” STHS President and CEO Joan Coffman said. “From the recognized excellence of our Breast Disease and High-Risk Clinic to our adoption of groundbreaking detection technologies to the central role we play at St. Tammany Cancer Center, our team of medical and radiation oncologists, diagnosticians, medical subspecialists, surgeons and other cancer-care experts have come together in a multidisciplinary fashion to build what is truly one of the most trusted and advanced cancer programs in the region, and this recognition underscores that.”
Opened in 2021, St. Tammany Cancer Center is a joint venture between St. Tammany Health System and partner Ochsner Health. In 2023, Ochsner and MD Anderson announced a separate partnership bringing the latter’s expertise to seven Ochsner cancer centers including St. Tammany Cancer Center.
Like all CoC-accredited facilities, St. Tammany Health System maintains a cancer registry and contributes data to the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), a joint program of the CoC and American Cancer Society. This nationwide oncology outcomes database is the largest clinical disease registry in the world. Data on all types of cancer are tracked and analyzed through the NCDB and used to explore trends in cancer care. CoC-accredited cancer centers, in turn, have access to information derived from this type of data analysis, which is used to create national, regional and state benchmark reports. These reports help CoC facilities with their quality improvement efforts.
There are currently more than 1,500 CoC-accredited cancer programs in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. CoC-accredited facilities diagnose and/or treat more than 70 percent of all newly diagnosed patients with cancer.