Three legislators are seeking to create a nationwide demonstration project that would use information technology to gather data on cancer care.
U.S. Reps. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio) have introduced the Medicare Quality Cancer Care Demonstration Act of 2009. It calls for a demonstration project that uses information technology to gather data on quality of care.
The project, implemented in phases by the Centers for Medicare and Mediciad Services, would enable the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) to assemble oncologists from practices across the country with advanced electronic medical records for cutting edge data to supplement Medicare claims presented to CMS. The structure would lead to a system that ensures quality cancer care while controlling costs, according to the alliance, a nonprofit group of medical practitioners who deliver cancer care across the country.
The COA has been working with Congress on the QCCD project, described as the "architecture of a solution" to today's cancer care crisis.
Healthcare reform is President Barack Obama's top domestic issue. And accoding to the alliance, it's especially critical in developing cancer care programs.
The QCCD is a multi-phased project that involves medical providers collecting data and implementing a patient-centric program that rewards quality cancer care while controlling costs. The objective is to combine two critical patient enhancing components: treatment planning and end-of-life care.
"As we address the healthcare crisis in this country, we can't allow cancer care to fall by the wayside," said Davis. "This bill would expand the availability and quality of care for millions of cancer patients and is a step in the right direction in closing the inequities in the payment system. This bill will help ensure an adequate level of both early treatment and end-of-life care for patients facing cancer."
He said the QCCD incorporates the fundamental elements in the healthcare reform debate – quality care delivery, evidence based medicine, care coordination, cost control and health information technology.
"The Quality Cancer Care Demonstration project offers a means of moving forward immediately and the architecture for a solution to the current crisis in cancer care," said Patrick Cobb, MD, president of the COA and managing partner of Hematology-Oncology Centers of the Northern Rockies in Billings, Mont. "All Americans deserve access to quality, affordable healthcare. And, before we can repair health care in general, we must fix this broken system."
