Better results from treating patients with cancer depend on improving the health care system.
"Evidence suggests that we don't fully use what is known to be effective in treating cancer. There's an appalling lack of information on the quality of care for most cancers, and efforts to measure quality in cancer care are embryonic at best," said Joseph Simone, MD, as a new report, Ensuring Quality Cancer Care, was released last month by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
The report places much of the blame for this situation on the fact that there is no national cancer care program or system of care in the United States. And it says that last year approximately 8 million people in this country needed such care, including more than 1.2 million who were newly diagnosed.
"Efforts to diagnose and treat cancer are centered on physicians, health plans, and cancer care . . . [Full Text of this Article]
